For me, the two aren't conflated, and I still find that I prefer some office time. I have the ability to work from home or work remote, so I often do that. But

For me, the two aren't conflated, and I still find that I prefer some office time. I have the ability to work from home or work remote, so I often do that. But I live in China, so social life is rather normal these days (modulo the occasional restrictions). Like another commenter said, I find it easier to care about the concerns of people around me, so if that's a bunch of people at my company then I'll care more about them and what they need. It makes a difference for me if physical presence and work presence are aligned. Probably for a similar reason, I've found that I can't reach 100% productivity consistently (over weeks) unless I'm in an environment where people around me are working. So that means finding a coworking space wherever I go. Also, in-person conversation is so much higher bandwidth than anything else. Those couple hundred ms of latency do matter. Being able to party on the same physical whiteboard is really nice.