About six months ago, I started working from home four days a week. It’s one of the best things to happen to me at work since the time Target let me take home two dozen barbecue chicken patties.

Now I go into the office one day a week, to do in-person stuff, and the other four I’m working remotely from home. For me, commuting to work in Portland is one hour, one way. Two hours a day in the car. Now that I’m only doing that once a week, I’ve gotten eight hours of my life back every week. I’m saving a boatload of gas and car maintenance money. My mental and physical health have improved because I’m sleeping more and exercising more. Every day at lunch I take my dogs for a walk.

The office is very nice, and filled with lovely people, but it’s also an office, with gray carpet and overhead lighting. At my home station, I can be right next to nature all day — even in and out of it. And, of course, I get to spend all day with my dogs; they’re excellent co-workers. Janey lies down right at my feet under my desk all day. Karma prefers to sit on the arm of the couch and stare out the window, watching the squirrels go by.

My work-life balance has improved too. I can do dishes or a load of laundry during my breaks at work, when my brain is already in what I think of as “productive mode,” instead of getting home at 6:30 or 7 p.m. and being faced with a pile of dishes in the sink. Or, if I’m feeling like a real break, I can sit on my back deck and sip my coffee as I stare into the forest.

Working remotely isn’t just good for me personally. Taking my car off the road four days a week means less greenhouse gas emissions are being dumped into the atmosphere and less wear and tear is being put on our roads and infrastructure. More options for people to work from home could even help ease Maine’s housing crisis.

Most people tend to want to cluster around Portland and the surrounding communities, where prices have skyrocketed. Why is that? Because that’s where most of the jobs are. Remote work options give people the opportunity to move farther afield, freeing up housing in the urban centers (such as they are in Maine) and boosting the economies of the community they are in. Instead of paying rent in Portland, I’m paying property taxes on my own home now in Wiscasset. I’m shopping locally and my lunchtime errands keep the dollars local, too.

Remote work is also good for my employers. For one thing, it means less office space they need to pay rent on. For another, I’m more productive at home, where I have complete control over my environment. It’s also good for retention and loyalty — a happy employee is not going to leave.

Obviously, not all jobs can be done remotely, and not every employee would choose remote work given the option. Some people like the office vibe! Personally, going in once a week is a good compromise for me. I get enough socialization that I don’t go completely feral (and my co-workers are all wonderful people) but not so much that I end up exhausted all the time. I didn’t realize how much energy just being around other people took from me until I stopped doing it.

Remote work can be super beneficial, so I’m confused — and a little suspicious — about all the companies starting to demand a “return to office” for their employees. In particular, the federal government is mandating a return to office for its workers, and considering there are between 2 and 3 million federal workers — or at least there were before the Trump administration’s mass firings — that’s a big number.

I think companies pushing for a “return to office” are doing it for a couple of reasons. At the federal level, the goal is pretty clearly to make employees miserable enough to quit their jobs (thus eliminating federal positions and saving on unemployment insurance). Another is because having empty offices tanks the value of office building real estate. (I think we should start turning them into residential buildings, given the aforementioned nationwide housing crisis, but I’m not a developer.) The third is about control. A lot of higher-ups don’t like the idea of their employees being out of their sight; they like having everyone penned up in one easy-to-watch location.

And some managers don’t know how to be a manager except for walking around and popping into cubicles to say hello. You ever had a manager like that, where all they really seemed to do was walk around and make eye contact and say hello to everyone once a day? And that was kind of all they seemed to do, other than signing off on payroll? I imagine those types of bosses don’t really know what to do with themselves in a virtual environment.

Remote work could be an important part of Maine’s future economy. It’s certainly an important part of mine now.