> Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work.
The biggest distractions in the office are the coworkers. Random hallway conversations, loud talkers in neighboring cubes/offices, people walking up to your desk with a question that should've been an email/chat (but really they are too lazy to check the ticket system/wiki/doc store for the answer). The level of distraction varies with each type of job, but for many quiet focus time is important. Working from home provides that quiet focus time.
The whole point of the office is the random hallway conversations, the conversations you should be in on that you know about only because you overhear it from the cube next to you, people walking up to your desk to ask a question.
20 years ago my boss ordered me to work from home one day when I had an urgent task to get done. Most of the time though I was better off in the office - while I couldn't get as much high concentration work done, I was doing more useful work because I was in sync with the office.
The above assumes that a significant number of people are in the office everyday. A pure work from home environment works because people figure out how to use other means to communicate important things. However communication is much harder, and thus takes more effort. As a shy person I would be much better off in the office all the time as I don't put enough effort into communication.
But that quiet focus time is all for naught if people use it to pursue their time consuming hobby instead of working. Which is the point that kicked off this thread.
The biggest distractions in the office are the coworkers. Random hallway conversations, loud talkers in neighboring cubes/offices, people walking up to your desk with a question that should've been an email/chat (but really they are too lazy to check the ticket system/wiki/doc store for the answer). The level of distraction varies with each type of job, but for many quiet focus time is important. Working from home provides that quiet focus time.