She asked me what type of guy was I, the introverted or extroverted one? The last time I checked in MBTI, the "method" that was loved by certain people, especially for girls, I was an introvert. This is interesting, because I have taken another test before, and the result was extrovert. From this moment I was skeptical about this method. It's too easy to assess someone's personality with some questions for whom the output depends on moods when they answer it. Moreover in this pandemic situation, most of the time I always at home. I think that the cause why the result was an introvert, when you spend almost a day, in your home.
I told her I was an introvert, later I knew she was an introvert too. She told me that she has signs of an introvert, such as easily tired when socializing with people and prefer to do personal activities like playing guitar or watching movies rather than go out with people.
Then, i asked her a question:
So, in this situation, you must be happy not to interact with people, right?
I got a surprising answer from her, actually, she missed the situation when she can interact with her friends and colleagues. She missed talking to them, laugh, and debate with them. Contrast with her personality. (Told you i skeptical about the method! 😡)
According to the research from Buffer, people are happy when they can work from home. They don't have to commute to the workplace and they can spend most of their time with family.
Source: Buffer
But, there are some cons too with work from home. Although you can have a flexible schedule for your work, sometimes you have to work exceed your regular work hour (Let's say 9 hours/day). When you are working and your boss didn't supervise around, the tendency to give more effort when working appeared, and it affects your work-life balance.
Lack of communication with the team can be another cause, when we working from home we rely on workplace chat like Slack and Whatsapp to communicate. Sometimes we need to turn on the video call when attending the meeting. There is a difference when doing communication directly and via text. We can't see the facial expression of our colleagues and the risk of misinterpretation is high. Misinterpretation with teammates can also affect our productivity according to The Atlantic, because we are scared to be embarrassed by others when expressing our opinion. Although in real-world conversation, it can be a joke to you and you will laugh with them. Because of the feeling of fear, it can reduce team productivity.
There is a point with a statement from my online friend that she missed the interaction with other people, beside lack of communication there is another biggest factor why people were struggling when working from home: loneliness.
According to research conducted by Buffer, 20% of respondents said they are struggling to control loneliness when working from home. This percentage is equal to a lack of communication when collaborating with colleagues, the biggest challenge when doing remote working.
Source: Buffer
Because at this time, we try to avoid going outside. We isolate ourselves from social interaction with others, but we never know when this situation over. Almost one year isolate ourselves at home, it should make us feel lonely. Worse, workload and work time that exceeds the normal situation makes us more stressed.