There are plenty of solutions for all of the issues mentioned in this article.

Learning to work effectively and happily from home is no different than learning how to do that at the office.

The difference is people seem to expect working from home to be easy and intuitive for everyone.

When the pandemic came, people were locked in their homes without much warning. Their employers begged them to please, please keep working like nothing's changed. People weren't given any specialized training or tools for working from home. They might not have had a quiet place with appropriate furniture or reliable internet. They were all thrown into it. And they had to deal with their family relationships aging in dog years due to the stress. If you were going to do a work-from-home trial, you would definitely NOT do it that way!

Despite all of that, companies did surprisingly well and lots of people saw many advantages to working from home for at least part of the time. Especially disabled people, poor people who lived far from work, people for whom the office environment is overwhelming or a constant barrage of microaggressions, and people who need flexibility because of caring obligations.

Then there was an economic downturn. There were many factors that contributed to it. With constant rounds of down-sizing and out-of-control inflation, workers have entirely new reasons to be stressed out and depressed about work. But working from home gets the blame.

Having worked from home for almost 20 years, I can remember when working from home was not this hot topic of debate. We just got on with things, and if we did a good job, our employers were happy about not having to set up office space for us.

Pro tip: Whether in the office or working from home, cultivate friendships outside work.