I've been working remotely for 2 years now and my team has people from all over the world. People mostly talk on IRC but not a lot (about important stuff) and there is a HUGE number of periodic meetings. I can't stand them. What's worse, every time things start to appear to be going off track, the initial reaction is to always set up a new periodic meeting about topic X... this is supposed to bring people together but useful interaction never happens on meetings (too many people trying to save face). It's horrible.

When talking to external partners, our management brags about having a remote team with people from all over the world, but I don't think they understand how to make this work.

Sometimes I feel we should all be in a single office because of this, but then I remember other companies have figured this out so I don't have to feel bad about wanting to work remotely.