I don't know about most people but lately, at the end of the day when I make enough progress to meet expectations, the last thing I want to do is anything related to work anymore, even if it's an investment in myself. At some point my life takes precedent over my career.

If delivery expectations are reasonable (i.e. time requirements), I don't mind networking outside of work. I've worked in environments with reasonable expectations and environments with unreasonable expectations. My observation has been that environments with reasonable expectations are in decline in the name of competitiveness and cost cutting measures, passing costs to employees.

This industry is becoming significantly less enjoyable to work in and growing to a toxic point of hypercompetiveness at every layer. It's not healthy for those working in the industry.

It’s a big company problem, not a startup problem.

Who can? Conferences are so expansive!