Mentally, at least for me, it's too easy to fall into the trap of classifying "work" as something that directly produces results....writing code, changing a design etc.
When looked at it from that perspective, it's easy to feel that you/someone are not doing a lot of "work", but often a lot of my time is spent on "work about work".... answering emails, managing clients, or even just brainstorming on a whiteboard / notebook. All of these are just as important to the end result of a project but are easy to overlook in a day/week/month that is ruled by deadlines, expectations, metrics, etc.
If I've got a telecommuter on my staff that gets shit done, but only works an hour a day, more power to him.
When looked at it from that perspective, it's easy to feel that you/someone are not doing a lot of "work", but often a lot of my time is spent on "work about work".... answering emails, managing clients, or even just brainstorming on a whiteboard / notebook. All of these are just as important to the end result of a project but are easy to overlook in a day/week/month that is ruled by deadlines, expectations, metrics, etc.
If I've got a telecommuter on my staff that gets shit done, but only works an hour a day, more power to him.