The exempt employees working for 50% more hours than they are compensated for really miss the boat. If you want to work 80 hours a week, god bless you. Just don't make it a charitable contribution.

I had to work a 90 hour week a few weeks ago to address a operational crisis. That netted me a bunch of overtime and a week off.

Some of us do. I was semi retired at 40. At 47 I'm working again, at roughly 60 hours a week, because I love what I am doing and the money is stupidly great. I'll stop again right around 50 to 52, assuming the work keeps paying this well and I keep having fun.

I always find these types of discussions interesting. It's never about things like work ethic, efficiency, or even skill, it seems to devolve in to what everyone thinks is the ideal work schedule for someone else. I have friends that think I am crazy for working like I am now. I don't really care, I am happy, the clients are happy, and my bank account is most certainly happy. But I would never tell someone else they should work as much as I do, or that they should only work 30 hours, or some other random number of hours.

Who says that's the "art of working" though? Why not "make as much money as possible while enjoying what you do" or "enjoy what you work on while making as much money as possible" or just "make as much money as possible no matter what" or "just enjoy my work as much as possible no matter how much money I make"?

I think the "art of working" is deciding what kind of work you want to do, how big a part of your life you want it to be, and then doing that.