Pitch a pilot, not a favour.

Because your manager has to justify the decision to someone else, and "my commute is long" doesn't survive that conversation. The case has to be about the work: what you deliver, how it's already measured, what coverage looks like. Personal reasons belong in one honest line at the end — or raised separately with HR if there's a health or caring situation, which in some countries has its own formal route.

If you ask for a personal exception, your manager has to explain to every colleague why you got one. If you propose criteria that anyone meeting them could also use, you've turned a favour into a policy — which is far easier to approve. Pair that with fixed in-office days for team rituals so nobody absorbs a cost for your flexibility.

Numbers, not reassurance. Core hours you're reachable, response times for messages, how urgent issues get to you, what happens if your connection fails, and which days you'll be in for the things that genuinely need presence. Plus how you'll make work visible — written updates and an accurate calendar — since not knowing what someone is doing is the real fear.

No. Working from another state or country can create payroll, tax, employment law and sometimes immigration obligations for both you and your employer, and people have lost jobs over quiet relocations. Raise it explicitly, expect it to need HR and possibly legal input, and confirm the agreed location in writing.

Ask for the specific reason, ask what would need to change, and ask when it can be revisited — a refusal with criteria attached is a future yes, while a vague no usually means the policy won't move. Check whether a formal flexible working request process exists where you work. And if remote is genuinely a dealbreaker and the answer is firm, the next move is looking elsewhere rather than asking repeatedly — without bluffing about it first.