Asking permission to fix tech debt is a rookie mistake. You need to bake the fixes into the ticket.

Half of my job as a lead is to cajole, threaten and convince juniors into spending 5 days on a ticket to do it properly rather than spending 2 in order to get brownie points for "looking" productive.

Ive had more than one call where the junior says "we don't have time for that" and I have to call in the PM to let them know that it's OK, we do.

There are environments where management put so much pressure on you that you can't help but deliver crap but not everywhere has to be like that.