I have worked remotely for the past 10 years, and have had 8 supervisors in that time. Four of them, I never met face-to-face, not even once.
One, an affirmative action hire, forgot that I worked for him. 8 months, not a single task, not a single assignment. I spent forty hours a week running errands, reading, web surfing. I sent him a weekly email asking for a conference call, and he never got around to scheduling time to discuss work with me.
Another gave me a general idea of what to work on, then never spoke to me again. I won't say what the project was, because conceivably a manager could identify me from the official terms. I'll just say this: 4p, 4a, 3a. (If you're an associate in wireline, you could figure this out, if you know vbuild). I waded in, and recovered about 17 million $ for good old Verizon. Here's the kicker, this hands-off guy gave me total leeway to work whatever hours I wanted. My kids were grown and I had debts, so I worked 60 hour weeks - and got all that sweet overtime. Top craft, union associate, got into double time every week. Made $40,000 extra that year. Great deal for me and great deal for the company.