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Comment by andrewljohnson | Hacker News Reader

We did the office thing and the coworking thing (in Berkeley). And the plus side to coworking is not saving money. Rather, it is:

* toilet paper provided

* coffee made

* trash taken out

* Comcast negotiated with

* walls decorated

* lease docs who cares

* bikes not stolen

Running an office was a hassle more than an expense. Though the private bathroom was nice.

Coworking hits a sweet spot when you don't want to hire an office manager.

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and

* quiet working conditions

I was at WeWork in SOMA ( San Francisco) this week for an interview with a Crypto Exchange startup. Was really surprise at how noisy it was, everywhere except the badge access room (which I'm guessing is very high fees).

The recruitment firm was working out of WeWork. That makes sense for them, cos they are on phone on all day, but what about software engineers and other techies? Do any of them work at WeWork? How do they deal with the noise? I don't see any way to do deep work in a place like this.

EDIT: This particular WeWork was unusually noisier than any other coworking places I've been at. Noisier than Workshop Cafe in Fidi, pariSoma in SOMA, and a couple of others that've since shutdown (I've been coworking on sideprojects nights, weekends since 2008).

We just quit WeWork (WeWork Transbay in SOMA) because of the noise. I think most people don't realize that the hot desk area is supposed to be a quiet area. I repeatedly told the community managers to make sure people know that, but they didn't do anything about it.

At one point, there was even a family with 2 small kids eating lunch there.

Also for 1-2 months half of the tables didn't have a power outlet because they had to remove the extension cords (security reasons) and had to wait until they could install the cords below the floor.And they didn't even offer a discount or something in return. Neither did they inform the customers how long and why this is happening - I had to go up to them and ask. How can this happen?

For a business where operational excellence and customer support must be stellar, they are not doing a very good job. And don't get me started on their software. And we've tried out 3 locations in SF, with similar experiences.

Maybe it's different in other cities.

This was a huge problem for us, as well. People would make loud sales calls pacing back and forth in front of the empty phone booths.

That's the worst! (for people like me at least)

But I've had this experience working at private offices as well. It's basically a problem anywhere with a) open-office plans and b) sales/marketing people who are in the same area as developers (sometimes startups outgrow a co-working space but aren't big enough for a seperated office).

This is why I work with headphones on the majority of the time whenever I'm in an office (coworking or otherwise). I have enough trouble self-regulating my attention without having to distract myself from others.

I was in a WeWork for 2.5 years. Our floor had four phone booths but probably 20 or more people whose entire workday was spent on the phone, which led to multiple people pacing the halls while on a call. No amount of gentle reminders, glaring, or fighting back with my own noise would stop the loud conversations on the other side of the single-pane glass door.

There was a similar problem with the capacity of the men's bathroom.

WeWork should take more care that their physical infrastructure is not overwhelmed by subtenants who are mostly alike.

There are a lot of developers (I am one of them) who don't feel particularly distracted by ambient noise and can still do deep work. Having people and some work buzz around you can also be motivating.

WeWork is super noisy, and even if you go when it isn’t busy, they play loud music through a speaker system that you can’t turn off. Also, there are only 21 songs in the playlist. It does not shuffle, it just loops.

Maybe it is hit and miss, but I was in a WeWork in London for 4 months and it was fairly quiet, but it was 4 people to a glass-separated 'room' (called a 'shared office'). So it would depend on the random draw for the other 3 people. The 'hot desking' area pretty much doubled as reception/cafe/breakout-area and was very noisy, however.

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