It’s been more than 10 years since I last worked in an office on any regular basis, and remote work has worked for me and my employers. And yet, when I read that Apple and IBM were moving away from telecommuting and toward more traditional office-time requirements, my first thought was: “What took them so long?”
Don’t get me wrong; remote work has real benefits. I shave two hours of commuting off of every workday, time that I can instead spend getting work done. Early in my telecommuting career, in fact, I had the following conversation with a manager who wanted me to spend more time at the office.