I have doubts that it’s 100% intentional. I think it’s more of an example of not valuing the volunteer work, and the consequences of not letting it factor into their overall performance.

For example, at my current company, the impact that a person makes towards our mission/core values gets factored in during our quarterly reviews, so volunteering on behalf of the company could very well get you a lot of positive reviews.

But if the only metric is the engineering output, then — even if the output lowers because you’re doing something else valuable — you’re going to be told you’re not doing your job.