Against “Feel Free To Take Some Time If You Need It" - Culture Study:

Productivity maintenance becomes a means to prove your fitness for the future, and, as such, your value as an employee: you have the skills, the fortitude, and the control over your immediate environment to work through the inevitable catastrophes and demands of the market. Whatever shit the world throws at you, the work endures. It’s not that you want to be a heartless robot; it’s that the market is hostile to those who aren’t, no matter what your manager assures you. The manager’s crisis refrain of “feel free to take some time, if you need it” is fundamentally a sorting question: are you someone who needs it or are you someone who can ignore that you do?