My co-workers former and current have been scattered around the country for over a decade now. This has been the way of our lives and we learned to work around people's schedules that could involve errands, after-school activities that need pick-ups and drop-offs. The workday could get fluid when there were important deadlines.
Catching up on the weekend is fairly normal when you need time to attend to personal business during the week. I remember working with a semi-retired consultant who lives in South Dakota. This was a bit out of the norm even for our geographically scattered team. Most of us lived close to a major airport though the definition of "close" could vary for people. Some of us lived in city apartments in downtown and other could be in a twenty-acre farm in the suburbs of a big city.
Getting visible and having career growth most of us found was not compatible with this style of work - atleast not within the organization itself. Typically people changed jobs to achieve those goals. Those who stay on often have reasons for doing so that may be unrelated to work. Reading about the pandemic giving tech company employees a chance to leave Silicon Valley makes me wonder why this did not happen already.
If the entire workforce is remote, no one is specifically disadvantaged for not getting the requisite face-time with the powers that be. It levels the playing field for all. The problems occur when some spend a lot of time in the office, meet the right people while they are there and further their cause while others never get a shot. Once that problem is eliminated, there is no reason why a tech company employee can't work out of Glasgow, Montana if they so chose. The salaries would need to adjust to reflect that reality naturally.
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