A culture of beer and overtime

That's fine, but I'd much rather not have to deal with defamation claims and burn too many bridges. After all, Vancouver isn't so big, and neither is the tech industry in general.

Glad to help. I mostly give advice like this because I'm keenly aware that when I was young and stupid I was often a doormat in e.g. dealing with companies, and despite years of socialization which had suggested to me that being a doormat was praiseworthy, things started to get better in a hurry after I abandoned my default presumption of doormathood.

In your future professional dealings, and those of the peanut gallery, you may find that people often just expect you to agree to their terms because it's easy, and that this is sometimes not in your interest. I've done my fair share of that, and had it blow up in my face once or twice, and almost blow up in my face a few other times.

Not to talk too much of the particulars, but I once signed a fairly straightforward contract which had straightforward terms which I thought I understood. In my ignorance, I did not understand that one paragraph -- which I thought was "the usual boilerplate" -- obligated me to do something which would have been very against my interest. That situation ended up getting resolved amicably, but older and wiser consultants (and my lawyer), when told what I signed, have all the blood drain out of their face.

In the instant case, you've just been dealt a bum hand by an employer, and based on their previous conduct I would not advance them bus fare, to say nothing of going out of my way to help. That "release" might include, hypothetically, an indemnification, a term which sounds almost synonymous to programmers. It isn't. Your competent legal representative would, if they read "indemnification", say Oh Hell No. There are probably even worse terms that could potentially be in there that I'm not even sufficiently creative to dream up.

Why affirmatively ask for that sort of risk by signing a contract which gives you no upside at all? You don't owe them any more than declining politely and asserting that paying your for services rendered is not optional. Asserting yourself there probably isn't nearly as costly in real life as you might be modeling it as.

Anyhow, stuff to keep in mind for next time, and for those in the peanut gallery who might eventually be given a similar ultimatum.

Also, comporting yourself like a Serious Businessman who does Serious Business (like contracts) only when doing Serious Business routine things like asking for a contract review from an actual honest-to-6-minute-billing-increments attorney sends a strong signal to would-be counterparties that they should not attempt to take liberties with you.

Could you elaborate a bit? I know the Japanese generally work long hours, and would love to hear an eyewitness' account of how things are done there and how you were dealing with the status quo (i.e. what you told your bosses, did you experience peer pressure).

This isn't about the beer parties, or the linkedin profile, or the personal website. It's about a petty PM with no legitimate complaints who has the misguided notion that you should be working 70 hours, and he is casting about for stupid reasons to call you "not committed." If that PM had any actual authority, then the author was 100% right to leave. Even if he didn't, that may not have been an environment you want to work in anyway if that sort of manipulation flies, so leaving might have been good. But I've been in situations like this where some clueless guy in a polo shirt and khakis thinks he's going to jedi mind trick you into working harder, and sometimes the correct response is to just ignore him instead of deciding the whole environment is toxic. It's a matter of how much influence this guy really had over the team.

Nobody else in the office who isn't trying to pull this lame bullshit gives a damn if you go to the beer parties or not. Some people like them, some people don't. Some people just want a chance to unwind after work and shoot the breeze over a beer. Some people want to fuck off at 5:00 sharp on friday and go home and drink beers by themselves or with their real friends. Some people don't drink. Nobody cares. Sure, there are brogrammers in the world who are going to diss you or think you're lame for not doing it, but this is on the level of people who would diss you for wearing the wrong brand of shoes, so fuck 'em. Same with the linkedin and website stuff: nobody cares unless they're trying to use it as a pathetically ineffective lever against you. It would be like complaining that you haven't posted any Facebook updates gushing about your new job. You'd just laugh in their faces or ignore them, because it's just so ludicrously irrelevant.

Through reading the article, I waffled between sympathizing with the author and thinking he sounds like someone who doesn't have the backbone to say "come back to me when you have concerns based on something real." The impression that I got was that the author accepted that these factors were the measure of his contribution in this particular team, and thus decided that this was not the team for him, whereas what was needed was to put his foot down and say "no, you're not measuring me that way." Because unless the whole company really was toxic, I doubt many others would have gone along with such a weak bunch of evidence that he's "not committed."

I definitely agree with you. I've made attempts on 2 separate days to speak with the PM about his petty excuses to label me as "not committed". Of course, that includes pointing out that the 3 points he brought up are completely irrelevant in terms of measuring my commitment, but in the end, it was impossible to reason with him, and I just didn't want to put up with that anymore.