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Fine, I’ll be that guy: CITATION NEEDED.You already was that guy by using an offending tone to the parent ("dear", etc).
>“More people” in your office says nothing except that more people in YOUR OFFICE are remote.
Parent said more people are working from home (a general observation), and gave an example of the situation in his office/town to illustrate it -- that wasn't meant as proof his general point, just illustration. He wrote:
"More people are working from home several days a week, so nobody cares how you're dressed. I'm astonished at how fast this has changed here (outside Philly). Probably 2/3 our cubes are empty on most days."
The case in Philly/his office is given as an aside/illustration. The general point (that working from home is on the rise) was communicated as taken for granted (obviously based on common understanding, prior observations, etc).
In other words: if he had wrote something to the effect of "increasingly more people in the USA are working for home judging from my office" you'd be right (but still condescending), but he didn't.
>I don’t understand how people who bill themselves as so smart can continue to fall for these basic errors in reasoning.
Probably for the same reason people who bill themselves as so smart can make one faux pas after the other and offend those they talk to.