I was looking for a co-working space where I could rent an office for one day a month or so. I was initially very impressed with the service from L Offices: I emailed an inquiry on a Saturday, not expecting a response until Monday, but received an email back right away from Tom, the office manager. He set up a tour for me the following week.
The facility itself is nice and new. There is plenty of parking. River and Campbell is a great location. During the tour I asked Tom two key questions:
1. Could I gain access to the building prior to 8 am? I work with folks in the eastern time zone and often have calls before 8 am. Tom said yes: if I texted or called him in the morning, he could buzz me in remotely. Given how responsive Tom had been to my initial emails, I had no concerns.
2. Could I rent an office with a door for the day? I take a lot of phone calls and would not want to bother folks in common spaces. I was told yes: normally a co-working space in the open costs $35, but for $15 more they would let me use a room dedicated to podcasting, where I could close the door. I said sure and made the reservation for the podcast room for the following week.
On the day of my reservation, I showed up around 7:15 am. Someone let me in the building, so I did not have to text Tom to let me in. When I got into the building, the podcast room was locked and had a sign on it saying it was reserved for another party. At that point I texted Tom explaining the room was locked and asked if a space with a door was going to be available for me that day, as I paid an additional fee to have a room where I could close the door. Tom did not answer my text at all and never followed up with me after my visit to address my concerns. I wonder if I had relied upon contacting him to get into the building if I would have gotten in at all. I did see Tom on the premises later that day, so I assume he was not ill/indisposed, so not sure why he ignored my texts.
Around 8:30 someone came to work the front desk of the office. I asked them to let me into the podcast room and explained the situation. They apologized and said it was not actually reserved for another person and the sign on the door was not correct. She mentioned looking into giving me a partial refund for my inconvenience. She never followed up and this discount never materialized.
When I reviewed the reservation detail email I noted the extra amount I paid only reserved me this room from 8-2pm. I would have typically worked until 5, but luckily I was able to leave by 2 because of my schedule for the day.
I don't like leaving negative Yelp reviews, so I emailed the business the next day and explained the issues I had. The owner, Krystal Popov, responded and said she would talk to Tom to see what was going on. Then she tried calling me--I was on a conference call and was not able to answer her call. She then emailed me and asked me to call her when I could. I tried her twice over two days--both times the call went to a voicemail box, which was full. I emailed her back and said I had tried to call, and asked her to reach out again when she was ready to discuss. That was more than a week ago--I never heard back.
It is not clear to me why I had these issues, especially when the initial sign up process went so smoothly. I liked the facility itself and the location, but I won't be able to utilize their services again if I am not getting the service I am paying for. read more