[trhway]

>The thing with voluntary crunch is it becomes institutionalized and part of your company culture.

Just say No. What i like about voluntary crunch is that it is voluntary. At the current job we don't have them - it is a BigCo after all, life-work balance, you know. At one of the previous jobs we had semi-voluntary crunches. Well, i would just get up at the standard time, pack my laptop and say Bye! to all the guys who semi-voluntary stay out for the semi-voluntary crunch. Was rated as the top performer anyway :)

I come from USSR/Russia, the country which has been relying a lot on heroism of the people through various moments in its history. One thing becomes obvious when you learn all that history - heroism is usually required as result of preceding idiotism performed by some other people.