Yep.

One time my manager did a hour long lecture for our team on how personal growth is important and that we all should expand our horizons and learn new stuff.

When I tried to reserve 2 hours A WEEK for studying tasks I got push back that I should do it on my own time. It was a complete joke.

Most of my knowledge of new tools comes from newsletters, forums, and content creators. I find things through passive media consumption (and, where I can get it, discourse with other enthusiasts) more often than I find them in the course of trying to solve specific problems.

But not all managers think that your learning sources are valid, and care more that you spend time on their learning paths. Even if it's your off time.

(Yes, there is a story attached to this haha... and more importantly, several different writeups[1][2][3] on how random internet wanderings have been more beneficial to my overall technological capability than people who insist on the importance of a CS background when building dashboards and client UIs. In practice, thanks to a dev box with insufficient RAM, and your typical tabbed-browsing problem, I used `pkill` over `ssh` -- something I picked up from toying with Over the Wire levels in my off time -- a lot more often than I used linked lists at that job.)

[1] bhmt.dev/blog/scraping

[2] bhmt.dev/blog/ctf

[3] bhmt.dev/blog/feeds

One time my manager messaged me panicking about a big nextjs vulnerability. I told him, no worries, I saw it on HN and we patched weeks ago. He told me to use HN at work as much as I want.

No. You should grow professionally outside of work by also following the work-mandated professional development plan. And you will be punished if you don't do it, or you do it at a pace that doesn't match expectations.

You know, don't forget the details.

I once got told for an internal promotion I couldn't put anything regarding my current role, responsibilities and achievements in the role. I got told to put any volunteering or previous.

Reason given was it's what is expected at work everything you do in your role, you need to show above and beyond.

Or grow professionally during work hours using a personal device.

You're 100% supposed to grow professionally outside of work.

Maybe? And yes.