The latest newsletter from the Dice company in Urbandale reports: “This month’s Dice Tech Topic Poll found that 38 percent of tech professionals are ‘doing work-related tasks all the time.'”

A poll of business owners and leaders might bring similar results.

A recent study by the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York titled “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek” found that 20 percent of American workers are topping that weekly figure. They’re putting in long hours at the office, then continuing to work via computers, cellphones and PDAs. The study also included commuting time; at least we don’t have to factor in too much of that in Central Iowa.

Forty-eight percent of the study’s respondents said they were working an average of 16.6 hours more per week than they did five years ago.

But let’s not ignore the title of that report. It uses the word “allure.”

Seventy percent of the 70-hour workers in the survey said their jobs are “exhilarating.”

If the hard-driving employees love to dive deep into their work, where’s the problem?

For one thing, few people can live like that indefinitely. About half of those surveyed said they didn’t want to maintain the pace for more than another year.

In the 1800s, American laborers worked six or seven days a week, 10 hours per day. During the Great Depression the Senate passed the “Thirty-Hour Work Week Bill,” although the House didn’t. In 1956, then-Vice President Richard Nixon proposed a four-day workweek.

Now we find ourselves living in an age when most laborers can count on a 40-hour week, but the most successful professionals take pride in working longer.

For those who love their job above all else, keep up the good work. For those who are driving hard now with specific goals in sight, good luck.

But if you’re putting in long, wearisome hours and don’t know why, maybe you should give that some serious thought.