I’m a generally introverted person who prefers to work from home and performs better either at home or with a private office.

That said, I have worked for many different companies, and rarely felt like working relationships were ‘foisted’ upon me.

I generally enjoyed interacting with colleagues because we were working towards a common goal - i.e. we had something meaningful which we cared about in common.

The one company where this wasn’t true had a cultural separation between product and infrastructure engineering, with a lack of mutual respect that flowed from the top of the organization.

My point is that if people don’t feel common purpose with their coworker that enables them to find satisfaction in their working relationships, that points to a company culture problem.

How many companies would you estimate have cultures with such problems? If they're quite numerous, then it seems to me that remote work removes a high risk of landing into an unsatisfying role while paying the price for having to still go to the office -- this lack of satisfaction is much easier to deal with at home where one doesn't have to pretend to be engaged so long as work gets done.

I agree with you in that at the company with the culture issue, working from home was ultimately the only way I could be productive and not hate my job. I did it for a while before ultimately leaving.

However it is definitely not a solution to an actual culture problem. Ideally, working from home should be a choice because it suits the individual’s needs, not a way to separate from dysfunction.

I think culture problems are quite common. Plenty of people report them, on the other hand I haven’t run into them all that often, and there are many people here who report reasonable cultures.

Yes. I am a young single guy who is not really a fan of the office. A lot of that is simply that have already filled all my available relationship time.

Adding new people requires removing other people or reducing my productivity to make more time available.

I am defining “relationship” more broadly to encompass all my human (and dog in my case) relationships.

I am not humblebragging about optimization. I have 24 hours in a day. They are generally all spoken for, meaning that for something to go in, something else must go out.

I don't understand how (and I think I've seen people implying it a lot besides you) office socialization takes away from socialization with other people elsewhere.

Don't you, like, have to work during those hours regardless of your environment? Even working for the government, they kind of expect that.

You never take breaks during the work day?

My breaks aren't anywhere near 8 hours.

> If you think interacting with coworkers is opposed to being a productive employee

Being productive is as much a waste of my time as interacting with coworkers.

I basically have every day mostly free because I'm just productive Enough and work remote. I am leaving an insane amount of (for-employer) productivity on the table and instead giving myself that productivity.

Didn't they choose their jobs, and with that, their co-workers?

I'd like to see them argue "I don't want to come to the office because I don't like to be surrounded by people like you" as well. Is that a common argument?

I think people who are unhappy with their working conditions should just look for another job. It's fine to try to convince bosses that changes would be beneficial, but I don't have much sympathy for all the whining.

I see what you mean, but I think there is a bit of a hidden fallacy here. Work is work for many people and not a fun place to socialize, despite this common and widespread idea that for some reason we should be doing the latter. Also, most people do not even get to choose their co-workers anyway. So it's not that one absolutely dreads being around their co-workers, but rather, it just boils down to one question: where you want to be glued to a chair? In a shitty cube in an open space office where you are bombarded by distractions after a 45min commute of smoking exhaust gas and air pollution from traffic, or at home, where none of the just mentioned conditions exist?

I kind of concur with the original comment too. Single guys in their 20s might want to go back to socialize, perhaps driven by this idea of socializing at work. Guys in their 30s, low on kool-aid reserves, no kids but maybe partner, might prefer to stay at home. Once the kids show up, now you have an external force that might push you back into the office. Guy in his 50s with grown-up kids? He's having a hell of a blast retiring in a remote cabin while cashing in on the big bucks. Unless he is a VP or a micro-manager; then he might be miserable for his inability to crush people's lives remotely.

I have nothing against work just being work, but I think there are different types of companies for a reason. If you want work to just be work, you can choose a company that treats work just as work and doesn't expect you to become one big family.

Like if you give the example of young people and old people - fair enough, then maybe young people are better of looking for jobs where they work together with other young people, and people in their 50ies are better off in jobs with other old people.

Ultimately companies are not created for the benefit of employees, but to create stuff. They try to be good to employees to be able to attract and keep talented staff.

> Didn't they choose their jobs, and with that, their co-workers?

What do you mean? Did they tell you about guy with questionable hygiene and that other guy with chronic allergy that makes him cough all day long during your interview?

If they learned that they have awful coworkers, they can quit again.

I just don't get the sense of entitlement many people seem to have.

I agree that some of radical pro-WFH people might seem entitled, but I think in reality they just too fed up with open-spaces and commute and see pandemic as their last chance to normalize WFH across the industry. Also, I honestly don't see why it is such a big deal to let every team decide how they want to work.

There seem to be companies that embrace WFH, so if I was in that situation, I would strive to become employed at such a company.

Or they can continue to argue for work from home. Lots of people are not "people" extrovert types and prefer working solo with only a bit of contact with other people. It doesn't matter who the other people are.

Agree __100%__. Now that it is proven what we've already known for a very long time (as a programmer I have no business sitting in an office), let's just not waste our time anymore.