The experience that Jay Huang had happens far, far too often. It happened to me at two companies. It is absolutely ludicrous.
I mean everyone was leaving after 8 hours a day, and sometimes I would work a bit longer than everyone else, but that’s okay, because it’s on my own will and it’s usually a feature or bug that I just have to get done.
A few days later, the PM says he wants to speak with me. What I thought was going to be a nice conversation turned out to be anything but. One subjective issue, and 3 questionable points. “You are not 100% committed”, he said. Weird, I don’t understand how that can be.
Overtime doesn’t denote commitment. Quality of work, delivering on time, passion for decision making, and willingness to do whatever it takes to make something great is what denotes commitment.
If someone doesn’t want to be home, with their families, exploring other interests then there simply isn’t something right with them. And you’d probably rather not have someone like that on your team.
The beer party mentioned in Huang’s post doesn’t get expounded upon. And the fact that there was beer is probably irrelevant. Some people like to drink. Other’s don’t. No big deal. However, making a party "optional" but then there being a backlash of any kind is terrible. I’ve seen this also too many times. Its stupid. And it creates a culture of people not wanting to be around one another rather than wanting to be around one another.