3 ms·

Not really. My experience so far is: 1. They're usually too noisy, meaning it's easy to hear the entire floor from any office or seating area located there. Th

by CM30 8y ago

Not really. My experience so far is: 1. They're usually too noisy, meaning it's easy to hear the entire floor from any office or seating area located there. This is especially bad with loud sales teams (which quite a few startups will need). 2. The reliability of the infrastructure is poor compared to an office you yourself own/rent. Seriously, in the last WeWork I was in, we had the internet go down for hours twice, the microwave explode three times, the toilets fail or have issues on a semi regular basis and keycards stop working for people every other week or so. We also had them refuse to provide the latter for larger teams, so hey, some poor shmuck got stuck sitting in reception till someone else came in. 3. Just dealing with so many others in a small environment is annoying in of itself. But hey, not sure whether those issues are more with coworking as a concept or certain ones being really poorly managed/maintained.

OMGTehAwsome 8y ago
Amen. I recently started at a WeWork and have had similar experiences. * The noise levels are crazy, and we're not even in an open office plan. We share a wall with a conference room and I swear they must be made of tissue paper because it feels like 20+ people are in my little 3 person block every other day. The isolation from the other glass offices isn't great either. * There's a lot of little things I took for granted from my old, cubicled gig, like eating at your desk. I'm a big proponent of actually eating in the break room, but you can't here. They've got hundreds of people per floor, but only a handful of tables, which are of course being used by people working or having impromptu meetings. But you can't bring your food into your office, because anything outside of a cold mayonnaise sandwich is going to stink up your little three person fishbowl to high heaven. * Our whole building feels weirdly cramped. The kitchen in particular, only has enough room for two folks to stand next to each other at a time. Is someone heating their food while another person gets a glass of water? Congratulation, you better sit down and crack open a book and hope the coffee's still warm when you're able to get to the other side. * Dogs. I get, I do. I love dogs. Great, furry, lovable little fucks. I don't like having to constantly look underfoot to make sure sure I'm not accidentally stepping on a labradoodle tail that's dangling out into the hallway. I don't like dobermans begging me for food at lunch. I don't like having to fight a golden retriever because I'm trying to get some damn ice and it's real, real curious about what's inside this vibrating box. I don't like having a goddamn chihuahua walk in under my toilet stall door. * The lighting system in ours is also a nightmare. Too bright when it's on. No memory, you can't set a permanent dim and even if you could this causes it to buzz quite audibly. But the worst part is that it turns on when it detects movement and turns off when it doesn't, with no way to shut this behavior off. I'm usually the first into the office so that first hour... code for a few minutes lights go off take a sip of water lights immediately go on* code for a few minutes lights go off etc, etc, etc. I will admit I prefer it to exclusively working from home. We tried that and by week 3 the loneliness was overwhelming (though you definitely still feel lonely when the people around you aren't coworkers either.)
- CM30 8y ago
  Ah yeah, forgot about the automatic lights. Those things are an absolute pain. It also reminded me of another issue (which may or may not be a general WeWork issue). Lifts/elevators. I swear these things are programmed in the least useful ways possible in these buildings, since they seem to think the floor with the reception area is more important than anywhere else in the building. So you'll be on say floor 3, request a lift, notice one's at floor 4, then notice said lift goes to floor 7 first for reasons no one quite knows.

by CM30 8y ago

OMGTehAwsome 8y ago

Amen. I recently started at a WeWork and have had similar experiences. * The noise levels are crazy, and we're not even in an open office plan. We share a wall with a conference room and I swear they must be made of tissue paper because it feels like 20+ people are in my little 3 person block every other day. The isolation from the other glass offices isn't great either. * There's a lot of little things I took for granted from my old, cubicled gig, like eating at your desk. I'm a big proponent of actually eating in the break room, but you can't here. They've got hundreds of people per floor, but only a handful of tables, which are of course being used by people working or having impromptu meetings. But you can't bring your food into your office, because anything outside of a cold mayonnaise sandwich is going to stink up your little three person fishbowl to high heaven. * Our whole building feels weirdly cramped. The kitchen in particular, only has enough room for two folks to stand next to each other at a time. Is someone heating their food while another person gets a glass of water? Congratulation, you better sit down and crack open a book and hope the coffee's still warm when you're able to get to the other side. * Dogs. I get, I do. I love dogs. Great, furry, lovable little fucks. I don't like having to constantly look underfoot to make sure sure I'm not accidentally stepping on a labradoodle tail that's dangling out into the hallway. I don't like dobermans begging me for food at lunch. I don't like having to fight a golden retriever because I'm trying to get some damn ice and it's real, real curious about what's inside this vibrating box. I don't like having a goddamn chihuahua walk in under my toilet stall door. * The lighting system in ours is also a nightmare. Too bright when it's on. No memory, you can't set a permanent dim and even if you could this causes it to buzz quite audibly. But the worst part is that it turns on when it detects movement and turns off when it doesn't, with no way to shut this behavior off. I'm usually the first into the office so that first hour... code for a few minutes lights go off take a sip of water lights immediately go on* code for a few minutes lights go off etc, etc, etc. I will admit I prefer it to exclusively working from home. We tried that and by week 3 the loneliness was overwhelming (though you definitely still feel lonely when the people around you aren't coworkers either.)

CM30 8y ago
Ah yeah, forgot about the automatic lights. Those things are an absolute pain. It also reminded me of another issue (which may or may not be a general WeWork issue). Lifts/elevators. I swear these things are programmed in the least useful ways possible in these buildings, since they seem to think the floor with the reception area is more important than anywhere else in the building. So you'll be on say floor 3, request a lift, notice one's at floor 4, then notice said lift goes to floor 7 first for reasons no one quite knows.