The people at the top like to be seen and heard, feel their own impact, and they don't trust their employees to work if they can't see them. Obviously that's a

The people at the top like to be seen and heard, feel their own impact, and they don't trust their employees to work if they can't see them. Obviously that's a broad generalization and untrue of places that do allow remote work. And often middle management is happy with remote work, but execs limit it. I see responses like "I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways." I think that's the exception amongst developers. Informal ideas are just as easily shared on slack, or by email, or on Jira. In fact, I find that getting someone to write something down means you have get better ideas coming your way (and less noise). > "but don't abolish co-location just abolish the meetings." The issue isn't always formal meetings. It's Bob, John, and Shirley coming by your desk. It's Joe and Jane having a conversation 5 feet away from you. It's the weird guy growing strange creatures in the refrigerator with 20 pairs of shoes piled under his desk that comes to bother you every time he's stuck on something instead of working through it himself. And the time savings! An extra hour of life per day if I don't have to commute - and I take a train a very short distance or bike it (ok, I like the biking). For some of my coworkers, they may gain two hours per day. How much happier and more productive would they be? So much more.