Even if I wanted to work productively for 8 hours straight, most of the low-level office tasks I'm required to do keep me from doing it -- explain to marketing why X product from Y vendor won't work for our situation, responding to email, meetings that always take up an hour no matter how short the agenda, etc. I think most of the engineers I know have employer-created hurdles that limit them to 4-6 hours daily of truly productive work.

Sounds like most of these things are pretty important for the business (except for maybe the overly long meetings). We'd all like to code in a bubble, but there are other things involved in running a business.

I wasn't arguing that they're unimportant or that I expect to code in a bubble, just that I'm paid to work 40 hours/week and roughly half that time is non-creative and non-coding. It's unreasonable to expect eight straight hours of productive creativity when business needs also require you to do TPS reports with your time at the office.

I've yet to really try it, but I always thought that (being single, without family) it would be more reasonable to work for 5 hours, have (at least) an hour break out of the office, and then work for another 5, for 4 days, is a more sensible approach to a 40 hour work week, than 58 with a (relatively) short break for lunch... I doubt that that would amount to 40 "productive" hours, but then again, I don't think the 85 leads to that either.