[shadowofneptune]

If the workplace sucks, as most do right now, there's about three options for what to do:

1. Force out the people who are making it suck. This is difficult with how managers are trained nowadays, never to take sides even if one party is clearly a drag on the group. Shunning and isolation are options, but ones very hard to keep up without support. If it's the manager who is the bad influence, you might as well be trying to shame a baron out of owning a castle.

2. Stop caring about work. Phone it in. Don't care anymore.

3. Don't be present physically in that environment.

Of course people want to work from home when every interaction is unpleasant, when management is badgering you into doing things. It also saves on transportation cost, cost of caring for family, every single thing that an employer likes to pretend is not their cost to pay. It's not about people being naturally 'introverted' or 'extroverted,' it's about the social environment everyone, including management, creates around them.

[redshiftza]

I've tried options 2 and 3 and I prefer spending my time working instead of constantly having to look busy. Remote work (aside from the obvious life and time benefits) in my experience has forced management to evaluate performance based on output and not bums on seats.Change is scary but I don't think this is going away anytime soon.