it's weird that we are prepared to die for democracy, yet willingly enter dictatorships daily for work and spend the majority of our waking lives with people we vaguely know

It's... not weird at all. Democracy is a form of governance that permeates all our lives and controls the state that has a monopoly of violence that can be used against us and take away our rights. It's not something we can opt-out of so it's important that everyone has a say in it.

Small groups forming to do things like commerce or non-profits or whatever are completely voluntary and can't take our rights away. The fact is, these authoritarian-like structures are efficient and effective. Even employee-owned corporations tend to organize this way by electing the officers.

Would love to see more companies experiment with democratic organizations though.