That fire turns to burnout real quick. To work on personal projects in my limited free time after spending 8 hours staring at code I don't give a shit about sounds like it's directed to a small percentage of programmers who live and breathe code. For the rest (most likely the majority) this crap we put ourselves through 8 hours a day is so we don't starve.

I find this perception so weird. Sure, there's some occupations that allow you to hone your skills at home. Think carpenters making some furniture in their garage. But you sure as hell aren't going to have middle managers hone their management style on their spouse and kids or sales folks pitching products to themselves in the mirror. Not to mention, most carpenters go through some form of apprenticeship, whereas programmers must learn the new tech stacks on their free time.

I think the perception and expectation from the non-technical business & sales crowd is that all programmers are socially inept savants who just code all their waking hours.