That was just the attitude my first boss had, any time one of us young guys (yea that was some years back when I was considered a young guy) wanted to spend some time after working hours to work on a personal project. He would even make it a point to show visitors what us "kids" were doing after hours. He thought of it as more or less free training for the company!
But like I said as the company merged and got taken over by ever bigger companies attitudes changed to the point they were more afraid someone might get hurt on company property or maybe use up half a dozen 7018 welding rods and that was going to eat into the profits of a large multi-national companies bottom line!