[jemmyw]

I've worked for fully remote companies and fully in office companies and large companies and tiny ones. I've been an IC mostly but also a manger and lead. My observation is: it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. Decisions are made, people do the work. There has been no noticeable quality difference except in the case of large+office where the strong social element combined with the faceless corp equalled a lot more pissing about having fun rather than working.

The real insight a lot of people have had is that they can work just fine with their remote colleagues without a manger needing to watch them. I'm sure most managers such as yourself aren't like that, but it only takes one in an org to really make people unhappy.

[mtpockets]

True of bad managers. And in large orgs they are not isolated, usually a group under a bad director or vp of a division.

And totally agree on the work being visibly the exact same output if not more in my case.

But one example I can give is how for certain folks who want to build a professional career or want to grow, they need to know who in what group they can connect with. And in office it looks like you sometimes seeing a person many gravitate towards and ask about them and find out they are a somebody. In slack there are no similar strong signals and you have to browse many channels and who knows if they would accept your zoom invite to connect. And in most orgs, driving this kind of connection building is nearly impossible remote - asking an introvert to go be social is hard enough in person let alone ask them to browse slack channels.

And as a byproduct most people stagnate, feel alone. How do you try and make friends? How do you try to find people like you? Productivity is there but feeling of any other benefit from work is gone and lets be honest, not all software work is meaningful and clearly adds to the bottom line. Adding unit tests to a codebase is a lot more tolerable when you have people you chit chat with on your breaks or go to lunch with. Again.. big corp type work situations. But I know it is also true of non high growth startups or medium sized companies as well. The KtLo work (keep the lights on) is needed but not super invigorating.

[jemmyw]

I get what you're saying but my anecdotal experience is different now that I think about it. I made good friends in both office and remote situations. I'm only in touch with one person from the in office times, and that's by email. I chat online with plenty of people I've worked with remotely in the past. Interestingly one person who was at the same company when I worked in office, but he was at another office... It just seems easier to carry on the chat when you or they move on. These are now the ones who form my network and occasionally I do get to meet some in person.