Comment by analog31
I'm also in a supposedly "hardware" role. Early in March 2020, the people in my group were all watching the data that were becoming available. My boss came into our work area and said: "You guys can all see what's happening. Let's clear out of here, then we'll figure out what to do."
I went and got my minivan, loaded it with the contents of my lab, and took it home. Then I ordered high speed Internet service. A few days later the schools closed, and my family was all working at home. I already had some lab space at home due to my side business.
Now, I didn't really mind working from work. It's a few minutes bike ride from my house.
Oddly enough, things were happening so quickly that even being a few days or weeks ahead of the game meant that we were charting new territory within our company, which is a large multinational. For instance, with no specific location, we started collaborating beyond our original group. We improved our use of rapid prototyping services. We got a lot done despite, I think, having a more relaxed pace of work. Though I work in "hardware," what that means in this day and age is spending somewhere between 0 and 100% of your time programming. I spent a lot of time programming while looking out the window, taking a break and going for a walk, and so forth.
It was also comforting to go back, eventually. I like the people. It could get lonely at home. I'm definitely not a introvert.
(Edited to clarify: March 2020)
I was in a role that did require a lot of talking, in a large health tech company. Oddly enough Covid was a great leveler for the org and I found myself reaching out to people across the world and learning about how Africa leads in certain market areas because of their straight-to-mobile attitude (midwives are fully mobile with cloud connected ultrasound devices in their backpack), I connected with India and that one guy in our team from the US promoted from on a laptop in a corner to a full meeting member. Shortly he was showing his home and we hung out after meetings.
For someone expected to create a lot of IP, this was great.
And then management started screaming we should get back the office. Which I did enjoy... For about 1-2 days a week.