There are real benefits to having personal relationships with your colleagues at work.

I started a job a few years ago and spent the first 4 weeks in the office in SF, then moved back to Australia. The relationships I established in that first month were invaluable for the first 6 months or so of my work there - lots of things were easier for me as a result because I knew who to message or connect on slack to get things done.

After about 6 months those relationships faded to the point that I couldn't rely on those social connections any more. It was difficult knowing who to message when I needed something done outside my team; and they had no idea who I was any more.

I don't think you need to be in the office every day, but I miss going to an office at all. Those casual social connections are crazy valuable. Zoom and slack don't give you the experience of sitting at a table with people over lunch and chatting. We dismiss those relationships at our peril.

Maybe in 1950 when only half of the population was working out of home. Now everybody goes to work and evenings and weekends are spent doing house chores.

[And no, I don't want to go back to 1950 at all, don't get me wrong.]