I was underwhelmed with my first experience at Centrl Office yesterday (I bought a coworking day pass, so I can’t speak to the private offices which looked nice). Reason: the coworking area wasn’t conducive to focused work.
First, there was elevator music playing, which made me feel like I was working on a bench at the mall. At minimum I would have preferred the music to be turned down more. Maybe some white noise instead?
Second, the chairs in the coworking area were very uncomfortable. I switched sitting positions frequently but by the end of the day my back hurt. For comparison, I can sit on the chairs at Outlet Coworking all day without complaints.
Thirdly, there was a lot of noise. A person at my table had a 3-hour Zoom meeting, some of it in constant dialogue with someone, and it made it very hard to focus. Down the hall there were quiet booths for that purpose, but there was no one to oversee that and no indication for the worker that those were available or expected. Later I went up to the 3rd floor to try to get some quiet… and there were people having calls in the common areas there as well! The 3rd floor also has quiet booths, but again there wasn’t any sense of oversight to ensure that the common areas stayed quiet. The last hour of the day involved overhearing a loud conversation between two workers in the 2nd floor coworking area.
Lastly, I had a confusing introduction to Centrl. I had purchased a day pass online 2 days before and received instructions on how to get to the space. When I came off the elevator at the 2nd floor, there was no front desk, seemingly no one in charge who I could ask questions or get oriented from. Same thing when I went to the 3rd floor. I finally called Centrl and got someone who answered my questions.
The feel of the space was great — minimalist, but tastefully and warmly done.
In summary, I probably won’t return to Centrl when I want to cowork. It felt undermanaged, especially with having no one present to answer questions or to encourage loud talkers to move to a designated space for conversations.
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