I Work, WeWork

[canyonwalker]

Today I help present a technical seminar for my company. In the past we've generally rented meeting halls for our seminars, but this time we had a meeting room at a local WeWork branch. This was my first time in a WeWork office. ...Not my first time meeting colleagues in a setup like WeWork, where people rent small office space short-term and long, or just buy basic memberships to sit in shared workspace, but my first time specifically at a WeWork brand office. It was... underwhelming.

For one, I was unimpressed by the A/V setup in the larger, A/V focused meeting room we had. The projector had a small screen, was low resolution— like, ten years old low resolution—and wasn't very bright. Half the work desks in the room didn't have power outlets anywhere nearby. Y'know, it's 2024, everybody has computers now. In fact most people have multiple devices at work that require plugging in. A room with half the desks not anywhere near outlets is woefully last-century. Yet this was a WeWork in Palo Alto, the freaking cradle of Silicon Valley.

Two, as I observed the way other people work in the office, I've got to say I just don't get it. I mean, for some of them it makes sense. In some places a small team has an office they rent longer-term. They've nested all their stuff in there, so they've got the extras to make it productive office space, and it's a place for face-to-face teamwork. But most of the people at WeWork were solo workers, working quietly— or not so quietly—in open, undedicated spaces.

What's the point of working solo in a shared space? Does being seen by strangers make it feel less isolating? Is the free kombucha on tap in the kitchenette (yes, it's very hipster/millennial) worth paying the membership and not having the privacy of working from home? When I work at home I can take meetings all day without having to wear a headset to stop from bothering the strangers in the room... or worrying about them bothering me with their meetings. I can sing to myself if I want when I'm bored. I can press the mute button during a call and shout, "What a fucking idiot!" to blow off steam. For me, after years of working from home, you'd have to pay me to work in a dull, shared office all day.

All I can imagine is that most the solo workers at these places have chaotic home environments. Maybe they have kids running around and screaming. Maybe they have housemates laying around and belching. Because otherwise what's the point of paying rent to sit down with your laptop at an empty desk, minus all the comforts and privileges of the privacy of your own home.

Comments

[sorcyress]

From a different perspective, as an ADHDer, sometimes it really really helps with focus to body double --have another person there, even if I'm not actually engaging with them in any way. See also working in coffee shops!

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

That's an interesting perspective. Thanks for helping me understand that.

[ojuang.livejournal.com]

5 years ago when office space was limited, I interviewed at a company that was using WeWork as a temporary space while they were looking to rent a larger one.
But I don't think that lack of office space to rent is an issue now ...

[canyonwalker]

I totally get small companies renting space for semi-permanent offices. A trio of remote colleagues did that at my former employer. It was cheaper for them to get a dedicated office at a WeWork type facility than in the traditional office rental market.

[kjn]

Back when I was regularly freelancing, I rented an office in two different office hotels. To me the value was two-fold: a clear separation between home and work, and the social value of having "co-workers" to help structure the day and to not go crazy from isolation.

But in both cases I had a real permament office. Multi-person spaces can be fine, but I'm thinking a max of 4–6 people in them.

[canyonwalker]

I used to be a big believer in the physical separation of home and work. I chose to keep working in offices for several years after remote work started becoming common in tech— and especially in tech sales, where teams are naturally distributed in different geographies for work. That changed when my employers moved to such extremely distributed models that commuting to the office no longer held any value except that it's a physically different space— and a far less convenient and comfortable one, at that.