Most employees, and I'm willing to bet about 98% of those reading HN who aren't contractors, are exempt and salaried. So "work week" in the legal sense has only

Most employees, and I'm willing to bet about 98% of those reading HN who aren't contractors, are exempt and salaried. So "work week" in the legal sense has only a vague correlation to the work actually get done. If you're assigned the same amount of work, you don't really have much of a choice.