This seems like a disingenuous answer to me - the rest of the team will take up the slack? And if they can't they must be a low-performing team? The OP may hav

This seems like a disingenuous answer to me - the rest of the team will take up the slack? And if they can't they must be a low-performing team? The OP may have some things wrong, but the 'constant grind' aspect of scrum sprints is spot on, there is no slack. Add to that the 'radical transparency' aspect of scrum. That works great among a tight-knit team, but it can be insidious and actually self-defeating when certain types of manager get involved and weaponize it. I'm sure there are many people who love programming, but hate being a programmer as a job, and to some extent that has always been true, but scrum seems in many cases to make it much, much worse, IMHO. The attitude displayed here is exactly the problem.