This isn't narcissism — it's something that I can't quite put my finger on. It's like my neighbor who loathes all form of public assistance and actively votes against the ACA, etc.; but, when he found out his youngest was nonverbal then went on a tirade that he couldn't get free help form the school. When I asked (my neighbor) about how we'd fund all the other nonverbal kids he looked at me like I was crazy: "just my kid, I doubt those other kids really need help".
It's some sort of inability to generalize from the local to the general? I dunno.
I live in deeply red exurban Texas; and, yes, a lot of my neighbors are like this. I'd guess ... 30–40%? When my wife was working on redistricting & gerrymandering, a Danish group came over. They're the ones who pointed this out, because they had bumped into the phenomenon in Denmark, first, when going door-to-door.
EDIT: I think we can all be like this. It's something I reflect on.
Yes. Most definitely. Personal experience has often changed my approach to, or the salience of, or - more rarely, because I genuinely try to be both empathetic and rational - my entire opinion about, oh gosh... An embarrassing (in hindsight) number of things.
This is inevitable, isn't it? Like, we all learn best through experience. No one can perfectly (however empathetic) assimilate another's point of view. And, anyway, exercising empathy is dangerous, because it makes us more vulnerable to manipulation by people who cynically evoke it.
Where I land with this is to self-limit the scope of my own judgment. If I have not experienced something, then as far as possible I defer to those who have. If something matters a lot to someone else, and only a little bit to me, I defer to them. My model of the world will never be perfect, so I'd like to minimize the consequences of my own limitations.
We all have the potential to be like this, but not necessarily the predilection.
That said, we are all, by default, some part selfish from the getgo, for oursself, for our ethnicity, for our religion (or lack thereof), for our family, etc.
It's our actual, physical inheritance from our mammalian body construction. Pack mentality gives us if not outright pack warfare, then at least callous disregard for the happiness of those in which out-groups we conjure up out of thin air. Yes, kinship theory is real and human beings can transcend it, but it must be a conscious effort to do so.
That is the baseline human nature. That's why history is so belligerent and why our "evolution" hasn't really gotten us beyond warfare, destruction of the Earth, and ever-growing unhappiness. It's also why the most brutal and callous of our people are now our leaders.
These are all personal choices, however subconscious, that stack up into the majority -- and we are, across the globe, across cultures, like this, until we choose to embrace compassion as our core precept, but few have, because they're still in their default state, raised by callously unconcerned, yet confident, "traditional" cultures.
As a boss, I honestly don't care. The business exists to get make money, and if a side effect of that is not letting people work, or pretend to work, in their pajamas, so be it.
As a person, I would like people to think of me as fair. And that's for the workers to decide not a commenter on a forum.
I'm going to assume here that you aren't just a sociopath and are open to having your mind changed...
How does paid vacation or benefits like health insurance fit into your model of the business existing to make money? You almost certainly provide those kinds of perks to your employees even though paying somebody while they are sitting on a beach somewhere doesn't directly help the business.
Think of work flexibility as just another perk. It's something you do to attract and retain the best people and allow them to do their best work.
If it has it's across a population and says nothing about the individuals working for the boss above. It's still up to managers to, well, you know... manage.
They have to evaluate their employees and people who aren't doing well working remotely may require closer management, may lose their wfh benefits, or something else.
Someday, you will find out how unconcerned the universe is about your life of privledge, because new regimes can spring up out of nowhere and vote you out of having a vote, and decide your new govt for you and the rules for your citizenship of this Earth, and maybe they don't care about your money or what you think is or is not fair.
You are as necessary as that old lion, enjoying his pride, the day before the new lions come to town.
It's some sort of inability to generalize from the local to the general? I dunno.