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I tried co-working as a cure for my WFH remote job depression and it didn’t work. Everyone sits together and works side by side but don’t talk to each other. Ex

I tried co-working as a cure for my WFH remote job depression and it didn’t work. Everyone sits together and works side by side but don’t talk to each other. Except for the people that are obviously working together. You don’t make real relationships, all the connections I made, while diverse and interesting, were not deep like you how you’d connect with real colleagues. I tried multiple co-working spaces and in the end I couldn’t replicate the connection or emotional obligation I felt toward real co-workers. This was despite all kinds of special events and hand holding by the spaces and forced socialization. It really feels they are doing their best to “build a community” so at some level they do know that it can’t just be a bunch of transient people who don’t really know each other. Or at least that will be quite depressing if that’s what it becomes. I hate to say it but when you’re forced to work with someone you do get to know them and bond with them. In my time there I noticed there was a huge problem with attrition. Just like I was experiencing, other people were not making the connections and gradually deciding it wasn’t worth it and thus not coming back. Also, all the forced socialization and events had a fake and artificial quality to them that eventually became annoying to me. No, I don’t want to bake cookies with some random guy I probably won’t ever see again. I soon stopped going to the events, and I noticed most of the people who went to them were all new people. The staff all knew this and they even tried to guilt us into attending the events, which just made it even more weird & awkward. Did anyone else have this experience? Maybe I’m just unique but I can’t help but feel these sorts of spaces may be just burning through a bunch of people trying them out and who knows where the bottom of that is? I’d like to see the attrition numbers of these places, which will ultimately tell you if it’s worth all this investment or not.

ravenstine 8y ago
That's my experience to a tee, although I'm not particularly bothered by it since I don't use "coworking" as a means to socialize or network, though I know it's sold as a way to facilitate networking. If I need to network, I simply go to industry meetups on Meetup.com, which are free. And yeah, a lot of the events these places have, while certainly well-intentioned, don't work that well in my experience. It's really not that easy to get to know people in these facilities since the expectation is that everyone be able to focus on what they are doing, so few feel comfortable striking up conversations with people they don't know. I'm sure it's regional to a degree, but that's my experience. I currently use a coworking space because I've found no other suitable places to work, and will have to do so until I find a home with a room that can be my office. Once I move, I won't ever go back to coworking if I can avoid it. Well, maybe I would if it was $50 a month, but paying hundreds of dollars a month for a chair and WiFi is pretty excessive. Most of the perks offered by coworking spaces can be had elsewhere for much cheaper.
- arvinsim 8y ago
  Lunch should usually be the time that people can bond. But people usually opt to continue working or eat with their colleagues.
josh_carterPDX 8y ago
I'm curious what the right course of action would have been. You mentioned that they held events, but that wasn't good enough. If you noticed people were working side by side and not engaging, what were you doing to help break that cycle?
- brm 8y ago
  Successful communities involve resource sharing between peers. They need to find a way to make coworking less transactional and more cooperative. If they’re not going to be working on the same thing they need to find a reason to interact with a purpose. This is the tough river to cross in a pay for space business. It’s why hotels aren’t collegial either. If you want it to feel good or collegial you need to build in mutual benefit or a responsibility of ownership like when a grocery coop has members do monthly work for the benefit of the coop. I’m honestly not sure what a corporate coworking space can do to get what they’re doing to this point.
  - josh_carterPDX 8y ago
    I think that's what excites me about WeWork Labs. It's not just dedicated desks. There is programming and real tangible help. I've been speaking to a number of founders who were WeWork members, but got so much more when they moved to the Labs space. Full disclosure: I am the WeWork Labs Manager for Portland.
vegannet 8y ago
I have a permanent desk in a WeWork and although there is reasonably high turnover (I’d guess the average desk tenancy is about 4 months although at least a dozen in my space have been there for 18 months or more) I have made a few friends who are still around and there’s quite a few friendships in the office amongst unconnected people. I think it’s definitely more challenging than a co-worker relationship because there’s less common ground and less forced communication but it’s definitely possible to have genuine friendships. I’ve been at the same desk since 2017 so I can’t compare my experience across multiple co-working spaces but I had a friend in my office who moved to a different WeWork and he said that the culture varies significantly building to building, so it could be that you’d find success in building friendships in a different building.
tjbiddle 8y ago
It entirely depends on the co-working venue, and more importantly - location. I live in Bali, Indonesia which is a very popular place for those who work online. There are multiple co-working spots that have an amazing setup, host member lunches, encourage people to skillshare with events, etc. - it's almost a cult over here and very common for people to hang out after. If I go to a party and find out the host is a member of XYZ co-working joint, often a large chunk of the guests are also from there.
fouc 8y ago
Is it attrition if they're just changing spaces or working from coffee shops etc? I'm skeptical they'd go back to working 100% out of home? Some co-working spaces do drinks on friday evening or similar, that could work for some? Another thing that might help is a common slack chat, so that it's easier to find out what people are working on etc.
uptownfunk 8y ago
Trying to make friends through the manufacturing of some artificial mutual interest is, in my experience, really ineffective. What I've found to be really effective, is finding some type of event where people share the same interest as you. This is doubly so, I've found, if the people involved are really passionate about said interest and you are as well. I've recently gotten into world music, and I've found there is a community of people really passionate about it near me, we clicked instantly, because having meaningful conversation became incredibly easy at that point. I could see the WeWork friend making / relationship making thing working if you are all working on similar things, are all passionate about it, and can have a conversation about whatever that is. But if you're all working on different things, in different functions, I think it would be hard to make friends.
wsc981 8y ago
I did remote working in Thailand in a nice co-working space called Anchor Coworking [0]. I must have worked from that location for half a year or so, perhaps longer even. In there I met a Russian who worked from that location pretty much every day. We did have nice chats often and I'd say we bonded a bit. We also lunched together and such. Nowadays I live elsewhere in Thailand but we still check up on each other through Skype now and then. And about half a year ago he visited Chiang Mai and we met once again in real life. For most of the other people working there it would have been harder to bond, partially due to these people working only for a short time from this co-working space. But I did have a chats with many people with many different backgrounds, so that certainly was interesting. Nowadays I work from home. Partially because there is no decent co-working space from where I live and partially because I am a bit of a loner (einzelgänger [1] as the Germans would say) anyways, so I don't need too many people around. Partially because I live with my GF and daughter, and that's enough for me. --- [0]: http://www.coworkingpattaya.com http://www.coworkingpattaya.com [1]: https://en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/einzelgaenger https://en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/einzelgaenger
a13n 8y ago
Did you try WeWork?
Ntrails 8y ago
I moved offices within a company, due to a restructure, to sit with my new formal "team". My actual job was unchanged though so I didn't work with any of the people I now sat next to. For personal reasons I was super anti-social when I just moved which resulted in much the same experience. I didn't have much work interaction, and no social interaction, so I was just a guy sitting at a desk in an office surrounded by strangers. I feel like the issue isn't something that can only happen in co-working. Enforced socials without common ground are the same whether you are nominally in the same company or not.
mrchess 8y ago
You summed up perfectly my experience with WeWork and co-working spaces in general. You have to pay for the month, but I was only using it 2-3x a week -- I mean part of a WFH job is to get back your commute time! Those few visits felt pretty empty. I also made no friends from the events, as it seemed people had friends already. At the end I just opt'd to save my $400 monthly payment and go back to coffee shops, and have some extra cash.
r_singh 8y ago
I tried something similar and was successful, so much so that I haven't been as happy at my current job (which is not remote). I made deep connections and friends (mostly with WeWork community managers, but not limited to them), and I genuinely felt like they cared about me and I could use their help in case of extreme loneliness. It might be worth noting that I'm a young, social boy and most of the people I made friends with were at least 5 years elder to me and were slightly protective about me as well. Also I'm in India, where co-working and social culture may differ from where you are. Also worth noting that we did keep a balance of speaking and working, since you can't do both together and there were different areas people would move to depending on the intensity of their work at hand, I would almost always have company for lunch though (I even found people to commute with!).
alexpotato 8y ago
Did you ever find a solution for your WFH depression?

ravenstine 8y ago

That's my experience to a tee, although I'm not particularly bothered by it since I don't use "coworking" as a means to socialize or network, though I know it's sold as a way to facilitate networking. If I need to network, I simply go to industry meetups on Meetup.com, which are free. And yeah, a lot of the events these places have, while certainly well-intentioned, don't work that well in my experience. It's really not that easy to get to know people in these facilities since the expectation is that everyone be able to focus on what they are doing, so few feel comfortable striking up conversations with people they don't know. I'm sure it's regional to a degree, but that's my experience. I currently use a coworking space because I've found no other suitable places to work, and will have to do so until I find a home with a room that can be my office. Once I move, I won't ever go back to coworking if I can avoid it. Well, maybe I would if it was $50 a month, but paying hundreds of dollars a month for a chair and WiFi is pretty excessive. Most of the perks offered by coworking spaces can be had elsewhere for much cheaper.

arvinsim 8y ago
Lunch should usually be the time that people can bond. But people usually opt to continue working or eat with their colleagues.

josh_carterPDX 8y ago

I'm curious what the right course of action would have been. You mentioned that they held events, but that wasn't good enough. If you noticed people were working side by side and not engaging, what were you doing to help break that cycle?

brm 8y ago
Successful communities involve resource sharing between peers. They need to find a way to make coworking less transactional and more cooperative. If they’re not going to be working on the same thing they need to find a reason to interact with a purpose. This is the tough river to cross in a pay for space business. It’s why hotels aren’t collegial either. If you want it to feel good or collegial you need to build in mutual benefit or a responsibility of ownership like when a grocery coop has members do monthly work for the benefit of the coop. I’m honestly not sure what a corporate coworking space can do to get what they’re doing to this point.
- josh_carterPDX 8y ago
  I think that's what excites me about WeWork Labs. It's not just dedicated desks. There is programming and real tangible help. I've been speaking to a number of founders who were WeWork members, but got so much more when they moved to the Labs space. Full disclosure: I am the WeWork Labs Manager for Portland.

vegannet 8y ago

I have a permanent desk in a WeWork and although there is reasonably high turnover (I’d guess the average desk tenancy is about 4 months although at least a dozen in my space have been there for 18 months or more) I have made a few friends who are still around and there’s quite a few friendships in the office amongst unconnected people. I think it’s definitely more challenging than a co-worker relationship because there’s less common ground and less forced communication but it’s definitely possible to have genuine friendships. I’ve been at the same desk since 2017 so I can’t compare my experience across multiple co-working spaces but I had a friend in my office who moved to a different WeWork and he said that the culture varies significantly building to building, so it could be that you’d find success in building friendships in a different building.

tjbiddle 8y ago

It entirely depends on the co-working venue, and more importantly - location. I live in Bali, Indonesia which is a very popular place for those who work online. There are multiple co-working spots that have an amazing setup, host member lunches, encourage people to skillshare with events, etc. - it's almost a cult over here and very common for people to hang out after. If I go to a party and find out the host is a member of XYZ co-working joint, often a large chunk of the guests are also from there.

fouc 8y ago

Is it attrition if they're just changing spaces or working from coffee shops etc? I'm skeptical they'd go back to working 100% out of home? Some co-working spaces do drinks on friday evening or similar, that could work for some? Another thing that might help is a common slack chat, so that it's easier to find out what people are working on etc.

uptownfunk 8y ago

Trying to make friends through the manufacturing of some artificial mutual interest is, in my experience, really ineffective. What I've found to be really effective, is finding some type of event where people share the same interest as you. This is doubly so, I've found, if the people involved are really passionate about said interest and you are as well. I've recently gotten into world music, and I've found there is a community of people really passionate about it near me, we clicked instantly, because having meaningful conversation became incredibly easy at that point. I could see the WeWork friend making / relationship making thing working if you are all working on similar things, are all passionate about it, and can have a conversation about whatever that is. But if you're all working on different things, in different functions, I think it would be hard to make friends.

wsc981 8y ago

I did remote working in Thailand in a nice co-working space called Anchor Coworking [0]. I must have worked from that location for half a year or so, perhaps longer even. In there I met a Russian who worked from that location pretty much every day. We did have nice chats often and I'd say we bonded a bit. We also lunched together and such. Nowadays I live elsewhere in Thailand but we still check up on each other through Skype now and then. And about half a year ago he visited Chiang Mai and we met once again in real life. For most of the other people working there it would have been harder to bond, partially due to these people working only for a short time from this co-working space. But I did have a chats with many people with many different backgrounds, so that certainly was interesting. Nowadays I work from home. Partially because there is no decent co-working space from where I live and partially because I am a bit of a loner (einzelgänger [1] as the Germans would say) anyways, so I don't need too many people around. Partially because I live with my GF and daughter, and that's enough for me. --- [0]: http://www.coworkingpattaya.com http://www.coworkingpattaya.com [1]: https://en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/einzelgaenger https://en.langenscheidt.com/german-english/einzelgaenger

a13n 8y ago

Did you try WeWork?

Ntrails 8y ago

I moved offices within a company, due to a restructure, to sit with my new formal "team". My actual job was unchanged though so I didn't work with any of the people I now sat next to. For personal reasons I was super anti-social when I just moved which resulted in much the same experience. I didn't have much work interaction, and no social interaction, so I was just a guy sitting at a desk in an office surrounded by strangers. I feel like the issue isn't something that can only happen in co-working. Enforced socials without common ground are the same whether you are nominally in the same company or not.

mrchess 8y ago

You summed up perfectly my experience with WeWork and co-working spaces in general. You have to pay for the month, but I was only using it 2-3x a week -- I mean part of a WFH job is to get back your commute time! Those few visits felt pretty empty. I also made no friends from the events, as it seemed people had friends already. At the end I just opt'd to save my $400 monthly payment and go back to coffee shops, and have some extra cash.

r_singh 8y ago

I tried something similar and was successful, so much so that I haven't been as happy at my current job (which is not remote). I made deep connections and friends (mostly with WeWork community managers, but not limited to them), and I genuinely felt like they cared about me and I could use their help in case of extreme loneliness. It might be worth noting that I'm a young, social boy and most of the people I made friends with were at least 5 years elder to me and were slightly protective about me as well. Also I'm in India, where co-working and social culture may differ from where you are. Also worth noting that we did keep a balance of speaking and working, since you can't do both together and there were different areas people would move to depending on the intensity of their work at hand, I would almost always have company for lunch though (I even found people to commute with!).

alexpotato 8y ago

Did you ever find a solution for your WFH depression?