This thread is pure gold!
While I was working, I was chastised by two different managers stating that it appeared that I did not "care" due to the fact I arrived at the office at 8:30, took an hour lunch everyday, and left at 5:30. I told them I got the work done, despite having more heaped on me at every turn, and nothing was going to change. I got promoted. They got divorces.
I agree that most people are not capable of being productive 50+ hours a week, but those who can do exist. A lawyer friend of mine is one of those people. When he was in law school, he'd walk around with notes in his hand studying (I need to ask him if he has ever run into a post!) even on a family trip to the zoo. It earned him a spot at the top of the class of a prestigious law school. He routinely reads and writes lengthy emails during our social visits. Once, he even wrote a fairly complex and important document in the middle of a kicking house party (because his wife would have killed him if he had skipped out!). Now, he works on highly public cases that everyone would recognize. Before going to law school, he was a programmer and would routinely program into the wee hours of the morning, sleep 4-5 hours, then do it again and again. Side by side, he could probably out "produce" me 3 to 1. The years are catching up with him though, and my retirement rhetoric is starting to sink in a bit. I just hope a divorce or mental/physical breakdown doesn't get him first.