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The Rise of the WeWorking Class

nytimes.com

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Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#31

Post by blfr »

slig wrote: post #21
buboard wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well why wouldn't they? as long as people treat it as a workplace (i.e. they dont print their love letters there) its a good opportunity for some neat travel advertising etc.

I don't understand your point. Are you suggesting that people that pay a co-working space to work there should accept that whatever they're printing (most likely they're also paying for the pages they're printing) can be read by the co-working space?

I don't know if they should accept it but realistically vast majority of companies don't have any valuable secrets. Maybe payroll data and perhaps the client list would be somewhat sensitive. Still difficult to act on for anything but price discrimination.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#32

Post by scandox »

puranjay wrote: post #13

I recently moved to WeWork after nearly half a decade of working in plainly inferior coworking spaces. It's early days, but I wouldn't be wrong to say that this is probably the first time in my career that I haven't felt, well, "unmoored". I freelanced through college, then through grad school, then I worked for a couple of years from home before moving to coworking spaces. At all these coworking spaces, despite thei…

So would it be fair to say it's like freelancing but you feel like you're part of a corporation? Like freelancing with the social and motivational aspects of working at say Google or whoever?

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#33

Post by dalbasal »

What a long winded article.

I don't really understand the fascination/surprise at wework and similar. It's just office space, packaged in a way that suits a few underserved markets.

Flexibility is valuable, and was previously underavailable. It also turned out that a lot of the "work-from-home" people would like office space, if it's nice and they can afford it.

What is so surprising or notable here? A slightly quirky aesthetic? Espresso?

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#34

Post by nrki »

crispyambulance wrote: post #30

Every time I see articles of these places there are pics of people with laptops, in rows, on narrow tables, almost elbow to elbow, sometimes sitting on high chairs or stools. Is that what these places are all like? It looks uncomfortable. It's like doing all your work in a high-end cafeteria.

It is often like this in the ones I've seen.

Depends on the area the WeWork is based in, and how oversubscribed it is.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#35

Post by RankingMember »

dsr_ wrote: post #10

I wonder if WeWork has already started an espionage (excuse me, business intelligence) program or whether that's a future development. Consider: an ordinary landlord knows how many desks you have, how many people show up on an average day, and how much garbage/recycling you put out. WeWork has operatives who can measure what percentage of your employees' days are spent at their desks, what they like to do for fun, wh…

Sounds like a good way to create an opening for a WeWork competitor to swoop in and eat their lunch. Companies get a whiff of that kind of level of tech monitoring even being a possibility and any CSO will have them scrambling for the door.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#36

Post by jdpigeon »

crispyambulance wrote: post #30

Every time I see articles of these places there are pics of people with laptops, in rows, on narrow tables, almost elbow to elbow, sometimes sitting on high chairs or stools. Is that what these places are all like? It looks uncomfortable. It's like doing all your work in a high-end cafeteria.

In my experience, yes. As an individual at the lowest price point you're paying $450 a month to sit a table in a cafeteria.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#37

Post by notacoward »

peteretep wrote: post #22
BucketSort wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? Although I'm 29, I still remember a time where there was at least the pretense of civility. Civility was the oil that kept this machine running smoothly, now it's sputtering left and right. We don't even use formal names like Mr./Ms. as much as we once did, if at all. I felt that was an important part of creating…

> When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? When people started having personal choices that affected the people around them. So: since always.

I think you're answering a different question than was asked. When did it become acceptable to politely suggest a different personal choice? Since always, as you say. When did it become acceptable to disrespect them for a personal choice? Pretty recently, and should have been never. That includes the personal choice to rationalize that kind of condescending priggishness online. What kind of person gets their jollies that way? Those who live by the sword, and all that. Maybe it would be better if we could all express the same ideas in more respectful and collaborative ways, at least to start with.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#38

Post by geofft »

notacoward wrote: post #37
peteretep wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? When people started having personal choices that affected the people around them. So: since always.

I think you're answering a different question than was asked. When did it become acceptable to politely suggest a different personal choice? Since always, as you say. When did it become acceptable to disrespect them for a personal choice? Pretty recently, and should have been never. That includes the personal choice to rationalize that kind of condescending priggishness online. What kind of person gets their jollies…

The article doesn't have enough detail to conclude whether "admonished" meant politely or with disrespect.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#39

Post by BucketSort »

peterwwillis wrote: post #25
BucketSort wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did it become acceptable to straight up disrespect someone to their face for their personal choices? Although I'm 29, I still remember a time where there was at least the pretense of civility. Civility was the oil that kept this machine running smoothly, now it's sputtering left and right. We don't even use formal names like Mr./Ms. as much as we once did, if at all. I felt that was an important part of creating…

Back in the 1960s, if you were black and seated at a lunch counter, a white person would spit in your face. Which was considered perfectly civil for a lot of white people. In some cultures, at various times (including today), the civil thing to do is to berate and even beat a woman if she appears in public without covering her hair or face. To the guy in the story, telling someone to not use the plastic water bottle…

Those were not civil actions for civilly minded people. Of course, people loathe each other behind closed doors and the less respectable people bring it out in public. Let me ask you this, would such an interaction as described in the OP comment happen in Japan? They seem to understand the importance of respect.

Re: The Rise of the WeWorking Class

#40

Post by conjectures »

dalbasal wrote: post #33

What a long winded article. I don't really understand the fascination/surprise at wework and similar. It's just office space, packaged in a way that suits a few underserved markets. Flexibility is valuable, and was previously underavailable. It also turned out that a lot of the "work-from-home" people would like office space, if it's nice and they can afford it. What is so surprising or notable here? A slightly quirk…

Yes. This is an article in want of an editor. "I went to an office and there was coffee. A person called X runs the office. X is a singer blah blah blah."

If the article touches anything like 'class' it doesn't touch it in the first couple of thousand words.

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