Xiao H.
Google
Pros: The space is very clean and well-designed, and has good lighting, with hardworking startup founders that help each other out. A truly heartwarming place.
However, the experience of renting an office for my startup there for the past half year has been disappointing, if not a nightmare.
1. Homeless break-in. I worked there during one of the unstaffed days. It was a holiday, but as a startup, we work 7 days a week. An office member nervously told me a homeless person followed her into the elevator and threatened her to get into the space. I am very glad the building security acted immediately, and they managed to find the person in the restroom. It took them a while because, if you've been to the space, you know it's like a maze. After that, I never dared to work in the space outside of normal hours again.
2. Chaotic billing. I started out as an access member. I liked the space very much, and my team was growing, so I upgraded to an office. I was told there would be a one-month promotion free on the website. But when I got upgraded, the manager showed me the system and told me there's no way for me to get that promotion. That's a whole month's rent. In startups, I had a million things to worry about and didn't argue with the manager because my teammates in New York really needed the access. The one-month promotion was never applied to me. There were several other things I don't want to go into details, but that's lots of back and forth emailing with the management.
3. There was a busy day in March and the lobby was filled. I had just come out of a meeting, so I waited for my co-founder in one of the casual meeting rooms where staff members themselves would take phone calls. As soon as I sat down, the staff there told me: "If you didn't book the room, you should not step in it."
Wow. I don't want to go into the details of everything there, but the process of talking to the management is a nightmare. And guess what—if you got into a lease with them, there's simply NO WAY to break out of it, even if it's clearly their fault. Fine, they want the money and want to cover everything up. For me, I just want to run my startup and ensure my team is treated fairly and has access to a nice workspace so they can be productive.
4. We finally welcomed the day—today—that my lease ends. I'm sincerely happy! We cleaned the office and transitioned out during the weekend. My new lease will start tomorrow, but on the last day, I had several important meetings that I needed to dial into from the office space. Guess what, I walked into my office and someone was sitting in it. Turned out someone was "trialing" the space, despite the fact that my lease hadn't ended yet.
After all of this, I walked out of this building with a much stronger heart, and I'm sincerely grateful to the people who have taught me these rare-to-learn lessons.
