For you. But not everyone works like that.
Here is a scenario for you: you're a manager at a company that does not have a remote culture in place. You have ten employees on your team. Two of them want to work remotely. You let them.
I'm interested in hearing how you would resolve these issues:
1. The remote employees now feel left out because even though on paper they are video conferenced in to all team meetings, important insights or decisions are happening in organic social discussions for which it is awkward or simply not worth it to start a video chat? What happens when everyone in the same room gets involved in a conversation that was started by two of the in-office employees talking about a weekend project, and they decide to port a discovery to their current software?
2. Some of the in-office employees start to find it cumbersome and annoying to communicate with the remote employees. They hate video conference software. They're reluctant to reach out to the remote employees because they know they have to set up a video call. Video conferences become prone to connection issues. Conversations that would normally be a five or ten minute check in with your peer in the same room become 30 or 40 minute asynchronous conversations over Slack.
3. Some of the in-office or remote employees encounter a lot of friction in communication, because they don't really know how to interpret tone over Slack. Video conferencing remains a pain in the ass, and some people simply don't want to do it.
I work remotely. I like it a lot. But I think your characterization of many of the comments here as a "crab mentality" is unfair. Not everyone wants to work remotely on a beach and not everyone focuses well or has the same discipline like you. Far more importantly, companies that don't already have remote cultures have employees that don't really want to work with remote employees for both rational and irrational reasons. It is a complex business problem to implement a functional remote culture for all involved.
2. Some of in-office employees find it cumbersome and annoying to sit next to loud and obnoxious coworkers. They find they can not get any work done around them. Why should we cater to some employees and not others?
3. Video conferencing is not a pain in the ass. At my job, it's a simple as "create skype meeting" on outlook. Everyone clicks link, done. Or if it's more adhoc-open chat, call, share screen. Done.
I've yet to see a good reason why good employees can not work from home, other than, your company is just poorly managed and can't handle it.
There's not much serendipity in any office I've ever worked in; I've always had to do the legwork myself.
Basically you decide to make a speech on some topic, e.g. this month I talk about how to make a compiler easily, then you work on it & learn what is necessary and in the end present it. Next month you decide to do Paxos vs RAFT on transacted clusters, then you study and prepare. Next month it's about using GANs to make new, sci-fi looking furniture, so you learn and present. Then you throw in perpendicular stuff like how to retouch beauty photoshoots properly, mix deep house as a DJ or compose trance quickly in Ableton, just not to get stuck in programming only. And so on.
Your perception of this approach changes relatively quickly in a managerial role.
If you are shaving 1-2 hours off your commute, then the overall output should be in line with whatever it was in the office. I probably met two other engineers that kept that in check.
But as an employee, there's no way I'm going to drag my ass into an office ever again on a regular basis, when I can just as well work from exotic beachfront homes.
This is going to work out just like companies who cut compensation work out. You'll be left with the mediocre engineers and everyone who's able to choose to work remotely will eventually do so. If you don't permit that, you're left with the chaff.
Besides, isn't it kind of the managers job to help keep output in check? If my output was down I'd expect a friendly note telling me to quit slacking.
This has to be the best comment in this thread.
I am observing this phenomena lately and I gotta say, I feel rather good about seeing the more backwards employers struggle already.
They really have no idea it's the programmer's market.
I have a line item called "distress surcharge" that is charged to clients who want to bother me with being in the office. Effectively doubles my rate. Helps them quit being silly.
I am looking forward to start working with N customers on contract / consulting base but the transition is really hard. People keep treating me like a coding monkey whom they have to swindle for the lowest possible salary. Guess I have to change my LinkedIn profile dramatically, and make my own website as a start.
Bottom-line / on-topic: if you're willing to share lessons learned from your transition then you should know that you'd have a passionate and intentive listener (me).
Why not? I work remotely and if I was to run a company I would hire remotely too. Given that I've coded myself I expect to know how long tasks should generally take. And I would want to give that benefit to my employees and attract talent as well.
There are courses that teach people how to focus on results and deliverables.
I work remotely for 6+ years; during that time I created some unique algorithms, traveled around the world, met diverse types of people giving me unexpected inspirations from which business benefited tremendously (unique stuff nobody else has). I have the big 4 companies trying to contact me all the time if I wouldn't want to work for them, however seeing inside e.g. crammed offices of Google in Zurich with monitor next to monitor, makes it very unappealing.
Remote work requires focus and discipline. Focus is way easier than in an open office, discipline is more difficult. I still remember finishing some server part and tests while laying on a beach in Barcelona using their public Wi-Fi, getting tanned, and whenever I felt like, dipped into the sea - it was super energizing and motivating to continue working. Also viewing sunset above the place of refuge on the Hawaiian Big Island from a rented cottage, while sipping a cocktail and working on some advanced algorithm was superbly motivating. Just because some managers need to control everyone around and enforce the same misery on their subordinates doesn't mean there aren't better ways to work. It's actually stupid not to give people WFH and make them miserable commuting (some people spend up to 6 hours/day in the traffic). The technology is there, but the perceived lack of control and insecurity of power structures must spoil it for everyone, "'cause everybody is doing it in the office and it can't be done other way well". Phew