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Seconding this. For individuals who can't separate work and play without physically separating them, yeah, I get you. I just don't have that problem, and there are almost no benefits to meeting in person for me.

Additionally, WFH (especially remote-only) gives me a chance to move to a bigger place outside the big city without having to balance the choices of between a small, cramped space for a shorter commute, or a bigger place with a longer commute. I like living in a place where the air is a little cleaner, there is more space and I don't have to commute for 1-2 hours back and forth on public transport or drive a car (at least not most days in the week).

A bigger place in turn solves the issue with penny-pinching or bureaucracy-heavy companies making it difficult to create a work environment which suits me. Yes, money is still a thing, but when tech is something you love anyway, spending a few hundred / thousand bucks on a work environment which will last 10 years is not that big of an issue.

At least right now, its a cycle which reinforces itself very nicely for its benefactors.

Going skiing for 2 hours a day is 1000x better than going to the office. I get to meet _real_ people who don’t _have_ to tolerate me because we work together. Yes this is super cynical and real relationships form at work, but for the most part, work relationships are transactional and ephemeral.

In addition (for me at least), working from home means that I can open the window and get some fresh air. I've never worked in professional offices with windows that open and there was never enough ventilation. My nightmare is a long meeting in a cramped conference room - hours of breathing in a mix of carbon dioxide, sweaty feet odors and respiratory droplets.

100% this. Ever since wfh started, I never had a single "brain melt" that regularly happened in the office due to 1h+ meeting in 4 sqm room and co2 levels going through the roof.

Yep, as someone who works sporadically but intensely, I much prefer getting everything done in half a day and then leaving early and enjoying the sunshine. If I was managed in such a way that I needed to find something to do to fill the rest of the time, I would be unhappy and have poor output because of the nature of ADHD.

> But I can get my work done for the day within 3 to 4 hours, and my manager is happy with how much work I'm doing, and the pace at which it happens. That means that for the rest of the day around those 4 hours, I can do whatever I want.

This is on purpose: as a senior dev, I estimate 1 point to 4 hours of coding work. (Roughly.)

Of the other 4 hours in your day, I expect roughly 1 hour CR stuff/editing wikis/answering emails, 1-2 hours meetings, 0-1 hour learning, and 1 hour walking in circles between things/bathroom/coffee.

Welcome to a “work day”.

The part of the office that’s a benefit is those two hours of coffee + learning can be with other people — and those 1-2 hours of meetings tend to be more productive.

> "If I were to go into the office, I'd need to either (a) spend longer over the same tasks to stretch them to fill out the day because I'm constantly being observed, or (b) finish my work at the same rate and ask for more work."

You might also consider trying c) Spend that extra time learning a new career skill that both benefits you in the long run and your employer in the short run. That's been my principle and it has served me well over a lengthy career.