What if you don’t want to go back to the office?

For Jeff Anderson, 61, working from home during the coronavirus pandemic has been a respite from office politics and the chatter around the copy machine.

But as the push to reopen the country’s economy intensifies, so do feelings of dread at the idea of returning to the office, said Anderson, a self-described introvert and anthropology professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y.

“Just walking from the parking lot to my office I feel like I could be sick,” he said. “It’s that bad.”

In wanting to work alone, Anderson is not alone. Many view a return to the office with sadness and anxiety, and not just because they still risk getting infected. A Gallup poll found a majority of U.S. adults working from home would prefer to continue doing so “as much as possible” after the pandemic.

These fans of online work worry that they — and the country itself — will lose important benefits discovered during this unprecedented experiment in mass remote work. People who have never liked schmoozing with colleagues have found new heights of productivity away from meetings and office chitchat. People

worried about climate change are eager to reduce their carbon footprints by avoiding commutes by car. And while many parents are desperate for schools and day care centers to reopen, some working parents are appreciating more time with their children.

Before the pandemic, Christine Reilley had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early bus to Manhattan where she works as senior director of strategy and innovation for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

“I’m better rested. I can devote more time to my work,” she said. “Just saving the time and money of commuting, I really like this personally.”

It did not take long for naysayers to declare that working from home was “overrated.”

Trying to meet on Zoom from a kitchen table with bored children and annoyed spouses complaining in the background is hardly good for productivity. Women say that video calls make it harder for them to get in a word during meetings dominated by men.

Telecommuting was already a growing trend that left out many low-wage workers and was viewed warily by employers who worried that people were slacking off at home.

For remote work to be successful, employers need to provide the right equipment and other support, said Laurel Farrer, chief executive of Distribute Consulting, a business consulting firm. And the employees must be able to get work done without supervision. If set up properly, experts and advocates say, remote work has many benefits:

• Less time on the road.

• Greater productivity. One well-known study from 2014 led by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom examined remote workers at a Chinese travel agency and found that they were 13% more efficient than their office-based peers.

• A cleaner environment (maybe). According to estimates from Global Workplace Analytics, a research and consulting firm, if everyone in the United States worked remotely half the time, it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle travel by more than 51 million metric tons a year.

• Money saved. Global Workplace Analytics estimated that people could save, on average, $2,000 to $6,500 every year by not spending on things such as gasoline and day care. Companies could spend less on real estate.

• More job satisfaction. A 2005 study found that job satisfaction increased with each additional hour people spent working remotely. But it stopped increasing beyond 15 hours.