Leaning in to "spontaneous conversations" as a benefit of office work is so weird. I count "spontaneous conversations" as close to the #1 downside of working in an office. Your ideation is my distraction. Also, championing in-person conversation as a way to communicate in the office often results in poor official communication: It's better to have clear, written communication of company/division decisions than relying on "Oh, I ran into Bill in the hallway and he said the team's now working on the FooBar project this quarter!" And poor internal documentation: How does this API work? "Talk to Erica" vs. "Read the internal wiki here"