A Little Rant

For the last 16 months (ish) I've rented some co-working space near to my son's school. It's been really handy and has seen my productivity spike. Because I've been paying for the space, I've been using it and it's meant that on at least one occasion (if not more) I've been able to take on extra work, just because I am so much more focussed here than when I'm at home.

In this time, I think I've been late with my rent once (school holidays, thank you very much). Despite having my own desk and an office that locks, it's often not felt like my space. The woman who oversees the whole office is a bit inclined to fuss around with art work and shift things around and I'm kind of ok with that (I wasn't so ok the day I came in and found a connector from some equipment that's on loan to me jammed between my desk and the wall ... but hey, nothing was broken). I've had office mates come and go. I've moved offices. I've had things shuffled around so that when space suddenly becomes available things can be photographed to look better. I think and hope I've been a pretty good tenant.

I'm currently sharing a large room with an architect and there's space for a third person. We had a third person for a while. I wasn't allowed to put my whiteboard where I wanted it because this  new person wanted to bring a bookshelf. Anyway, she decided she didn't like sharing with two people so moved to another room to share with one (the previous second tenant on that room had bailed 2 days before taking occupancy ...).

So what is ostensibly a spare desk has been advertised on gumtree for a while. Last Thursday, an architect rocked up to see the space. He was happy and said he'd take it. At the time, he met his two new roomies.

On Friday, he got in touch with the coordinator of all of this and said he wanted the whole room and offered her loads of cash. She accepted. This happened around lunch time. Just as I was leaving for school pick up, she told me I no longer had a space.

So now ... I'm in my two weeks notice.

And I'm not happy. Sure - our agreement is two weeks notice - that part I don't have a problem with. But she could have come and talked to me as soon as she knew instead of cowardly waiting until I was leaving.

In fact, if she'd come to me and said "actually, I really need more rent for the room and I'd like to advertise it as share or sole occupancy" I'd have been ok.

I'm also ticked off at this new architect. The ad was clear it was a share space and he's just come along and gone 'I want' without any consideration for the people already working there.

I'm also ticked off I've been given my marching orders when it's highly unlikely she's seen any money from this guy. Given the somewhat rotating door nature of tenants in the last 16 months, you'd have thought that someone quiet and chilled out, who pays their bills, would go a long way.

But apparently no.

I guess it's just a reminder that in business, as in life, we should treat others as we'd like to be treated.