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I worked in one and it was awful. Always had to be hoping that your neighbor was respectful, and even if you got lucky and they were, then you had to hope that

I worked in one and it was awful. Always had to be hoping that your neighbor was respectful, and even if you got lucky and they were, then you had to hope that they stayed long enough, before some other neighbor came in and ultimately created an undesirable co-working space. It's 2017 and we have the internet. When will (internet) companies start embracing telecommuting more?

prawn 10y ago
Depends on the style of the space. IMO, hot-desks are an optional subset of co-working. I own a small building that we operate as a co-working space - a few small 1-2 person businesses in a mixture of open plan and private office spaces. I enjoy it. Some of us need to get away from distracting kids at home, or have a shared space for client meetings, enjoy the friendships and banter, etc.
- nodamage 10y ago
  We rented a 2-person "private office" at a local coworking space in Seattle. Unfortunately we only lasted about a month before giving up and returning to our home office. The problem was, even though they called them "private offices", each office was only separated by a thin layer of glass which did not block any sound, and consequently you ended up hearing every conversation in every office adjacent to yours. This made it impossible to get any work done, especially since some of our neighbors happened to be on the phone all day as part of their work.
  - prawn 10y ago
    Ours are proper walls with two sheets of gyprock (which I think you call drywall). People also take as many phone calls as possible away from their desks in the meeting room or kitchen. I find that it works well for me. For every minute I might lose being distracted by someone chatting, I gain back another time by feeling pushed to work. If I'm at home, it's too easy to get up looking for snacks to procrastinate.
dheera 10y ago
The internet still sucks in 2017. I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries without having to say "Can you hear me" every 5 minutes and then having to repeat stuff all the time. Doubly forget having a productive meeting if one of those people is on Comcast, has a crappy Wi-Fi router, is in China, can't figure out how to get their microphone to work, or has babies yelling in the background. I'm all for telecommuting as a concept but we aren't there yet.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Check out Zoom. We have 50+ participants on video conf calls weekly without any issues; participants are global.
  - riffraff 10y ago
    I can vouch for Zoom, I use it daily in chats with 5-10 people in 5+ countries and frequently with more, it works flawlessly given a decent connection (basic DSL). I wish the UI was a bit better though (e.g. consistently working way to see who is talking is a feature that is not there or, it seems, sometimes it is and then disappear).
  - psybin 10y ago
    Zoom is pretty awful, we have constant issues with audio quality.
- bdcravens 10y ago
  I've done multiple international mentoring sessions via Zoom and it hasn't been an issue. (and my home service is Comcast)
- digler999 10y ago
  > I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries my team can't even have one call-in member (a few states away) join a teleconference without it sounding like she's underwater.
toomanybeersies 10y ago
There are several people at my coworking space who work remotely for companies overseas, as well as quite a few individual contractors or 2 person businesses. They can work from home if they want to (and sometimes do), but they like coming into a space where they work around other people who are also working. They work here because they get a clear separation between work and home, and because they get lonely working at home, as well as losing key networking opportunities. I don't mean networking in the "make me money" way, but just in the "meet other people who do the same thing" way. Not everyone wants to work from home. I never could, I'd be spending in excess of 16 hours a day in the same little space, that sounds like a special kind of hell for me, it would be like prison. I think that there's nothing worse than sitting at home all day on just the weekend, I couldn't do it all week as well.

prawn 10y ago

Depends on the style of the space. IMO, hot-desks are an optional subset of co-working. I own a small building that we operate as a co-working space - a few small 1-2 person businesses in a mixture of open plan and private office spaces. I enjoy it. Some of us need to get away from distracting kids at home, or have a shared space for client meetings, enjoy the friendships and banter, etc.

nodamage 10y ago
We rented a 2-person "private office" at a local coworking space in Seattle. Unfortunately we only lasted about a month before giving up and returning to our home office. The problem was, even though they called them "private offices", each office was only separated by a thin layer of glass which did not block any sound, and consequently you ended up hearing every conversation in every office adjacent to yours. This made it impossible to get any work done, especially since some of our neighbors happened to be on the phone all day as part of their work.
- prawn 10y ago
  Ours are proper walls with two sheets of gyprock (which I think you call drywall). People also take as many phone calls as possible away from their desks in the meeting room or kitchen. I find that it works well for me. For every minute I might lose being distracted by someone chatting, I gain back another time by feeling pushed to work. If I'm at home, it's too easy to get up looking for snacks to procrastinate.

dheera 10y ago

The internet still sucks in 2017. I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries without having to say "Can you hear me" every 5 minutes and then having to repeat stuff all the time. Doubly forget having a productive meeting if one of those people is on Comcast, has a crappy Wi-Fi router, is in China, can't figure out how to get their microphone to work, or has babies yelling in the background. I'm all for telecommuting as a concept but we aren't there yet.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Check out Zoom. We have 50+ participants on video conf calls weekly without any issues; participants are global.
- riffraff 10y ago
  I can vouch for Zoom, I use it daily in chats with 5-10 people in 5+ countries and frequently with more, it works flawlessly given a decent connection (basic DSL). I wish the UI was a bit better though (e.g. consistently working way to see who is talking is a feature that is not there or, it seems, sometimes it is and then disappear).
- psybin 10y ago
  Zoom is pretty awful, we have constant issues with audio quality.
bdcravens 10y ago
I've done multiple international mentoring sessions via Zoom and it hasn't been an issue. (and my home service is Comcast)
digler999 10y ago
> I still can't make a 3-way video call between people in 3 countries my team can't even have one call-in member (a few states away) join a teleconference without it sounding like she's underwater.

toomanybeersies 10y ago

There are several people at my coworking space who work remotely for companies overseas, as well as quite a few individual contractors or 2 person businesses. They can work from home if they want to (and sometimes do), but they like coming into a space where they work around other people who are also working. They work here because they get a clear separation between work and home, and because they get lonely working at home, as well as losing key networking opportunities. I don't mean networking in the "make me money" way, but just in the "meet other people who do the same thing" way. Not everyone wants to work from home. I never could, I'd be spending in excess of 16 hours a day in the same little space, that sounds like a special kind of hell for me, it would be like prison. I think that there's nothing worse than sitting at home all day on just the weekend, I couldn't do it all week as well.