If you’ve decided to operate from a coworking space, congratulations and welcome! You’ve chosen an option that combines practicality and professionalism. Coworking is the wave of the future, and we’re already starting to see a coworking spike in the Bay Area. You might be a little nervous about your first day at your coworking space, and that’s perfectly fine. Here’s a little overview on how to act politely and professionally at your new “office”.

The main thing to keep in mind is being considerate. There are many different types of people with different types of companies working around you. Although you might operate on a Monday-Friday basis, not everyone does. So even if you’re ready for the weekend, you’ll want to keep your Casual Friday volume around the same as your Busy Monday volume in order to appease your weekend working coworkers.

Networking is encouraged in a coworking space, and in fact can be one of the biggest benefits of working in one. Meeting professional people who have the option to work from home but choose to be at a designated workspace can be a great help in moving your business forward. Be friendly if you’re in the open space section, or the kitchen. Don’t think it’s out of the ordinary if one of your coworkers introduces themselves to you. However, if you’re in the quiet, more closed-off portion, try to keep to yourself more. The people who choose to work in these areas are there for a reason, and are most likely trying to meet a deadline, so try to be considerate and leave them be.

There are a lot of free resources in the coworking space that you can use, but generally speaking, try not to hog or abuse privileges. We encourage all of our coworkers to take advantage of the coffee bar, but try not to take more than you need, or take one to go for your spouse every night. We also have fast wifi, which we encourage and expect to be used pretty much constantly. However, downloading movies or streaming Netflix is going to slow down the internet for everyone else, so it’s best to do that from your home wifi.

Generally speaking, there aren’t too many rules in a coworking space. However, in order to keep everyone happy and productive, it’s important to be considerate of each other.