The Misunderstood Perks of Remote Work: Why Some People Still Don’t Get It

Office perks used to be a big deal. If you worked in tech, finance, or any modern corporate environment before 2020, you probably got used to the usual lineup of workplace amenities: free lunch once or twice a week, kitchens stocked with snacks and drinks, gym memberships or onsite fitness centers, fancy coffee machines, comfortable lounges, and maybe even the occasional company-sponsored social event. For many people, these perks became such a normal part of the workday that they almost felt like an entitlement. It wasn’t just a bonus—some employees truly believed it was part of their compensation package.

Then COVID hit, and overnight everything changed.

All of a sudden, the free lunches disappeared. The snack bars disappeared. The kombucha taps and cold-brew machines went silent. No more gym access, no more catered Friday breakfasts, no more communal kitchen where people gathered to socialize and pretend they weren’t avoiding meetings. Everyone was sent home with their laptops, monitors, and a “temporary” work-from-home plan that somehow turned into a multi-year global restructuring of how people work. And with that, office perks died—temporarily or permanently, depending on the company.

Most people understood this. After all, how are you going to have “free lunch” when everyone is sitting in their own kitchen? But then there were the few who just couldn’t wrap their heads around the new reality.

At one point, someone at my company actually started asking—no, insisting—about office perks again. They wanted to know if they could expense lunch. They wanted the company to send snacks to their house. They wanted a stipend for coffee because “we used to have free coffee at the office.” It was almost unbelievable. We were working from home—nobody was commuting, nobody was stuck in a cubicle for eight hours, and nobody had to fight traffic just to arrive at a desk that wasn’t even theirs. And yet, this one employee kept pressing: “When are the perks coming back?” “Why can’t we get reimbursed for lunch?” “Why don’t we get a WFH snack budget?”

You would think the shift to remote work made the perks conversation irrelevant. But apparently not.

Let me break it down for those still confused: the biggest perk of working from home is the fact that you don’t have to go to work. And that perk alone is worth more than all the office snacks in the world.

When you go to an office, you wake up early, you get dressed, you get in your car or hop on a train, and you spend anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour (or more) traveling somewhere you don’t want to be. Then at 5 p.m., you do the whole thing in reverse. On average, most people spend around two hours per day commuting. That’s ten hours per week, forty hours per month, and roughly five hundred hours per year—all spent doing nothing but sitting in traffic or staring out a bus window, effectively wasting time you will never get back.

When you work from home, that disappears. You get two extra hours of your day back—every single day. And the value of that time? Priceless.

I mean, think about it: those two hours could be spent on anything you want. You can sleep longer. You can cook breakfast. You can exercise. You can clean, walk the dog, watch a movie, or even—let’s be honest—play video games. Half the time, you don’t even need to pretend like you’re working. As long as you deliver your results, nobody cares if you’ve got Netflix running in the background. No one is hovering over your shoulder. No one is monitoring when you leave your desk to grab a drink. You can stretch, relax, and actually live your life instead of being stuck in the office pretending to be busy just because your boss is walking by.

And yet… some people still want office perks?

That’s like being handed a free vacation and complaining that the hotel didn’t include a mint on your pillow.

The irony is, remote work actually exposed something strange about office perks: many of them weren’t perks at all—they were bribes disguised as benefits. Companies offered free lunches so employees wouldn’t leave the office. They stocked kitchens so people would work longer hours. They gave gyms so workers wouldn’t “need” to leave to work out. Everything was strategically designed to keep you at your desk as long as possible. And for years, employees didn’t even realize it.

Working from home flipped the script entirely. Instead of perks that helped companies squeeze more time out of us, we suddenly had perks that helped us get our time back. Real perks. Life-changing perks. The kind of perks that actually improve your overall quality of life, not your employer’s productivity charts.

A commute-free life is something people used to dream about. There was a time when “working from home” was seen as a rare privilege, something only freelancers or self-employed people could enjoy. Yet here we are, with remote work becoming more common than ever, and some people still want snacks?

It’s almost comical.

Let me tell you, I have no idea why this one employee kept asking for office perks. It wasn’t just once—they brought it up multiple times. “Since we had free lunch before, can we get reimbursed now?” “They should at least give us a budget for snacks, right?” “It’s unfair that we lost our perks just because we’re home.” Meanwhile, everyone else was just enjoying rolling out of bed and clocking in without even changing out of pajamas.

Maybe this person genuinely believed that the perks were part of their compensation. Maybe they didn’t understand the purpose behind those perks. Or maybe—like some people—they just wanted to find something to complain about.

But the truth is simple: when the environment changes, the perks change with it.

You can’t have office perks without an office. And more importantly, you don’t need office perks when the biggest inconvenience of office life—the commute—has been completely eliminated. It’s not even a trade-off. Working from home is a straight upgrade for most people. And if you don’t see that, you’re missing the entire point.

Let’s do some quick math. A two-hour commute per day adds up to 10 hours per week. That’s more than an entire workday wasted on transportation. If a company gave you the option: “We’ll give you free lunch, snacks, and coffee, OR we’ll give you an extra ten hours a week of your life back,” which one are you choosing? If you’re even hesitating, I don’t know what to tell you.

Working from home means you can get more done in less time. It means you have the freedom to structure your day the way you want. It means you’re not stuck in commute-rage traffic. It means you’re not dealing with people breathing down your neck in an open-office cubicle farm. It means the work-life balance becomes real, not just a buzzword HR throws around in job descriptions.

So why were they still asking for perks?

Maybe it’s habit. People got used to getting things for free and didn’t like the idea of losing them. Maybe they felt like perks were a sign of appreciation from the company. Or maybe they just didn’t understand that perks are context-dependent. When the context changes, the perks naturally change too. You can’t have a free coffee machine in your house courtesy of the company. You can’t expect them to door-dash your lunch five days a week. That’s not how business works.

If anything, remote work created a new kind of perk: autonomy.

You have the autonomy to work in your own environment, cook your own meals, take breaks when you need to, and manage your workload without the constant noise and distractions of an office. You have the flexibility to be more productive or more relaxed depending on the day. That freedom is worth far more than a bag of chips from the communal kitchen.

And let’s be honest: most of us didn’t even go into the office because of the perks. Sure, the free stuff was nice, but nobody took a job because the company offered unlimited LaCroix. People go to work because they need a paycheck. The rest is just fluff.

So when this employee complained about losing office perks, I couldn’t help but shake my head. They were missing the whole point. The world changed. Work changed. Our lifestyles changed. And frankly, the old perks just don’t matter anymore.

If you’re working from home and still longing for office perks, maybe you need to rethink what you actually value. Do you want a free lunch? Or do you want the freedom to eat lunch on your own schedule, in your own kitchen, without someone interrupting you with a random question about a project you don’t care about?

In my opinion, the real perk is being able to close your laptop at 5:00 and already be home. No commute. No stress. No wasted time. That’s worth more than any “free snack program” could ever provide.

So to that one employee who kept asking: I still have no idea what you were thinking. But maybe it’s time to realize that the best perk of all is the one you don’t need to ask for—because you already have it.