I'm having a hard time being sympathetic ...

He joined a team that was goofing off, which made it an extremely fun place to work. Wouldn't life be easy without deadlines? So when they actually had to produce something, they were far behind where they should have been. The fault for this situation probably lies with the management but ... as a developer (who's ostensibly getting paid), you should expect to do work at work.

He also states that he was sad to see the "Big Blue Box" culture and company disappear. That company would have instead gone out of business if someone (the parent company?) hadn't stepped in and changed things.