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.
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.