Study finds that 34% of humans are strongly introverted.
I can leave the house at 5:00 PM on the dot, so we can all go out and have fun with other friends and families (in my city we're not locked down at all) much earlier in the day compared to old commute times.
I do miss the free food and fun lunches, but I don't feel like I'm getting the short end of the "interaction" stick.
Networking events, tech talks, company outings, there was lots of things to fill up my calendar.
Now that I'm in my 30's and I've moved to a smaller city to raise kids, it's all flipped. Family & friendships take the large majority of my free time and I only attend work events if I'm traveling for work anyways, which I haven't done since 2019.
I imagine if I was still living the life I did when I was in my 20's, I would really miss those interactions.
So I signed up for wework.
Initially it was great, the change in scenery and socializing was a welcome change. However I quickly got very exhausted. My wework was down the street, yet I was getting exhausted on a daily basis.
I cancelled my membership and now I am working from home and much happier than before. I think we underestimate how hard it will be readjust from no commute/mental simulation from the environment to full blown pre pandemic lifestyle.
1) Having to wear a mask for 8 hours a day. I couldn't breathe properly. Also, generally poorer ventilation compared to my apartment -- I sit beside a window.
2) Couldn't freely engage in meetings -- especially the technical ones. I was the only engineer there and I could feel how flabbergasted people were of what I was saying.
3) Constant dread of hunger; at home I always had snacks, fridge nearby, but at wework I had to either responsibly pack the lunch/snacks or routinely go out the convenience store.
4) Exhaustion from the environment stimulus. What I mean is, my mind is always subconsciously scanning the room (cleaning lady, elevators, telephone ring, coworker A-Z). At the end of each day I was mentally tired which led me to skip my gym workouts. Now that I'm back home, I have been back to regularly hitting the gym.
5) No large screen monitor; context switching for screen real estate is also exhausting.
Overall I think my experience at my employer could be different since point 2, 3, 5 would be mute.
Eh, I'm not so sure it's just an intro/extro kind of thing. I and most of those quizzes (for whatever those are worth!) label me as an ambivert (an extroverted introvert- I'm good with people and excel at socializing, but it wears me out) and I'd still love to be remote for the rest of my life.
Goodbye, open office plans. Goodbye, coworkers that don't shower, play music without headphones, and eat tuna melts at their desks. Goodbye, two hour daily commute. Goodbye, wearing pants during meetings.
Okay, that last one was a poor attempt at humor, but I'd say the other three reasons are valid and not really related to introversion.
But my desire for a short commute and the ability to not live in the Bay Area is much stronger.
I want to transition to developer (solo learning now), and having someone in my job over sighting my junior BS would be helpful, but honestly I just have a much more nice life now.
I work surrounded by nature sounds. Birds, a slight brise, sun... Man, no office can compete with this.
And I would much rather have the time and socialize at events and places that aren't related to a work function. In that case, me leaving a job for whatever reason doesn't automatically remove my "friends". (And no, I don't think many are actual friends at a workplace. Politics and decorum are definitely a thing.)
They managers and colleagues are also just people I spend a lot of time with. I know a lot about their private lives and they about mine. I could work at other companies doing similar things for similar income but I stay at this one because I believe in the things it's trying to achieve with its products (not very successfully yet, but I do what I can to improve things...), and so do my colleagues.
And yes, it all happens against a background of making money, but it's also a huge social thing. The two aren't opposites.
I actually did leave this job at one point, still got invited to the company barbecue, and when my new job didn't go so well (didn't click with the culture there) and a few other programmers had left the old job, I got asked back and did. There are several ex-colleagues I still have contact with.
I lead a boy scouts group, during summer camp last year we weren't allowed to go in public pools because of Covid, so I asked if we could use the pool at our founder's house because it was in the same area, and he thought that was a great idea so we did.
In the end it's people you spend a lot of time with, of course it's social.
(company size ~80 people, 20 years old)