The answers here are interesting and not what my engineering brain would have expected.


usually when I say, "You don't have to say yes," or some version of that, I quite literally mean that I have no expectations of you doing what I ask and won't be offended if you say no.


It seems however that you humans prefer to use this as some sort of reverse psychology. Like when the managers at work tell us that we should focus on the life part of our work life balance, what they really mean is that we should feel like we have a bad work ethic and should focus more on the work part of our work life balance so that we can get ourselves to the level where our boss needs to tell us to back off.

*shrug*