My local library blocks vpn and ssh, actually, so that makes it even worse.
Seattle Public Library has all kinds. They even have music practice rooms, with pianos and soundproofed walls. I used to go there after work.
This might sound terrible, but I don't want to expend each days' stack of valuable clear-minded 'processing time' greeting people or talking about whatever is on their mind. Of course, I acknowledge that as a solo guy I have different needs to the people that find these places useful.
And there aren't any interruptions or work noise or being face to face in meetings with people I don't like.
I thankfully work remote now. I dont have separate room but just a corner of our bedroom, with a standup desk. I hope I never have to go back to working in a normal office.
Unlike most high tech "fancy" workspaces, Indy Hall purposefully has the literal cheapest Ikea desks and an assortment of random chairs to use at them. I'm not saying it's a dump, but it does not have the "wow" factor that a WeWork has. Instead of coming to The Hall for the space you come for the community. It's the people who make it a place where you want to be at.
It has a super diverse community. There are obviously people in tech but there are also non-profit, journalists from USA Today, WaPo and Gizmodo, artists, and even a plumber. The collective experience of this community is awe inspiring.
One of the best parts is the lunch table. On any given day you can engage in surprisingly intellectual conversations about almost anything (from the Phillies to social issues to intricacies of the patent law with a lawyer member).
There is a big downside to the space though, distraction. It literally a giant open office plan and it is way to easy to get distracted. They have a quiet zone and I have noise canceling headphones which help - but it's not ideal.
All in all I'm happier at a coworking space than I am at home.
Luckily I wasn't self employed and all my colleagues also worked in the same space, so lack of productivity wasn't a huge bugbear for me. Everyone else was equally affected and they paid me peanuts anyway so I didn't really care.
They have 6 or so conference rooms of various sizes you can use. The agreement you sign says you get so many units of conference room use per month, but it's not enforced. They tell you verbally it's unlimited as long as you don't abuse it. The practical result of this is that a few people camp out in the conference rooms all day. The staff, instead of confronting the abusers directly, just sends weekly emails to all users reminding them that conference rooms are not private offices. With no incentive to change their behavior, the conference room campers keep on camping.
I lasted almost a year, but now I'm back to the home office with occasional trips to a cafe down the street when I need to get out of the house.
Conference rooms there do have to be scheduled, but there are no locks on the doors or anything. I was 15 minutes into a 30 minute block once and some guy just opened the door and walked in. There are windows on the doors, he just didn't look. Then he looked surprised when he realized I was there. I put my meeting on hold and he told me he had the room at 2pm. I said something like, "I have it until 2, right?" He said he didn't know, turned around and walked out.
Do you mean fuck as a word?
Thats an issue? Or are the people the issue?
It is an issue when I'm in a call with a client and somebody in the same room as me yells the word "fuck". Do you struggle to understand why?
- Start your day at the same coffee shop, every morning. Get to know the people working there and the other regulars. Don't even try to get work done. Just hang out and talk to people for 30 minutes.
- Go to your own private office. Shut the door, have no distractions.
- Meet with friends or clients over lunch or afternoon coffee. Go to evening meet-ups if you feel like it.
This method maximizes both the ability to focus and social benefits, while co-working does a mediocre job of both.
I work in a small business environment, so having complementary businesses around me is useful, but also insightful - I've learned a lot from copywriters, graphic designers, marketers, etc.
At our coworking space, we fend off the types of tenants likely to be making a lot of sales calls, and most calls are made outside of the main space. I think it works pretty well.
Really? I mean I don't have any hard evidence to the contrary, but that seems really hard to believe.
In all seriousness it has been common for a long time for attorneys who are solo-practitioners to share an office front and receptionist, but nobody ever called it a co-working space.
The tech population is very transient, or at least it feels that way to me. It seems that everyone is from out of town or an immigrant.
When I moved after university to start work in another city, I didn't know anyone else in my new city. The coworking space I worked in, with a whole variety of different companies (most of them non-tech), was a great place for me to meet new people and make new friends.
almost everyone would opt for a private office if they could get it for $350/month. (good luck in NYC/Boston/SF!!!)
Coworking spaces are actually terrible businesses so they end up being real estate plays for most people. The non-profit model is the best, IMO, because it puts the focus on the community which ends up making the space great. The non-profit element also ensures that it isn’t a software mono culture: a couple of political campaigns, and the local ACLU chapter (to name a couple) work out of the space and it super interesting to chat with them.
Addendum:
I also think coworking spaces are one of the rare times when open offices don’t suck. I don’t work with anyone there, so if I have my headphones on no one bothers me.
Its cost effective and the facility is top notch.
But the downsides are similar to what other people are describing here. People camping out in Conf rooms / phone booths, speaking loudly over phone, and the noise and distraction that's ever present.
From a business standpoint you have a whole variety of different people wit different skills and knowledge who can help you and can bounce ideas off, often for free. They're great for networking and gaining new customers/clients too. You also have this flexible working space, meeting rooms, and multimedia equipment (printers, AV equipment, presentation rooms) that you wouldn't get in a private office as a smaller company. If you're a member of a space that's in a network it makes finding a place to work out of a lot easier when travelling too.
That's the theory, at least. And there are a lot of coworking spaces that achieve this, or get close. The one I used to work in was pretty much this. I did have some complaints though about noise, privacy/distraction, and not having a permanent desk to sit every day and pile up my crap.
Noise was a bit of an intrinsic problem, it was a high roof warehouse and people had a bad habit of using their phones at their desks (annoying to have a salesperson sitting next to me all day), but I listen to music all day so wasn't too upset.
Privacy/distraction was caused by the problem that they didn't have adequate separators/cubical bits at the desks, so you felt like you were sitting at a massive dining table. Nice sometimes, but annoying at others when you're trying to focus.
The hotdesking thing was annoying as shit. This was only a problem because my boss was too cheap to pay for permanent desks, which would've also solved the other two problems as we would've been able to customise our space.
And that's the core issue of coworking spaces. There's the theory of what a coworking space is: this social collaborative etc. etc. thing. But in reality, far too often they are just a cheap working space, either because companies cannot afford something better, or are just too cheap to pay for something better. Hotdesks are fine if you work in sales and are always out of office or in meetings, or work as a solo founder. But they're horrible if you want to sit in the same place next to your colleagues and code all day.
Different work environments work for different people, and in an ideal world everyone would get the work environment they need for optimal productivity. But in reality this doesn't happen because employers are cheap.
There is a great Portland based company helping people find viable alternatives to coworking spaces. It's called Workfrom. You can find them at https://workfrom.co/
One of the oldest and largest banks in the UK...
