[tmottabr]

the company that i work for has several people in the same city or close enough that we can go meet at the office, yet i completely disagre with this take.

If collaboration is beneficial in some situation then in office meetings should happen with a situation that would benefit from this collaboration arise. If the need is not there then there is no point.

In my team we go to the office once a month mostly for social interaction, it is usually the day we are lest productive because we basically drink coffee and catch up and even then it is open if you have other personal needs to participate remotely or not at all, we had months were there wasn't anyone in the office and we just meet virtually. I have not gone into the office yet this year myself for a number of reasons.

I still collaborate constantly with my team mates, we have enough tools for remote collaboration that make being physically in the same space irrelevant, this also allow collaboration to extend the team members in other countries so i am not limited to the people that live close by.