Suddenly the table football roar starts.

Hard balls that are shot at goal, the buffers of the rods and their grinding noises, the ticking of the scoreboard, and again and again voices, screams, sometimes even jeers.

Office neighbors take a break or keep their offspring busy while they are in video conferences themselves.

Everything in the green area.

People nearby doing their thing.

From the direction of the kitchen, you can then hear the espresso machine grinder, the beeping of the microwave, the clattering of dishes.

A few minutes later someone appears on the roof terrace with a bowl or plate in front of my window - and yes, then you just have to block out the noise if you can't or don't want to take part in the happy gossip or the intensive discussions,

Susanne Preuss

Business correspondent in Hamburg.

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There are not only the perfect moments in a co-working space.

Not even in the shared office on the roof of a multi-storey car park in the center of Hamburg, where I have been spending my working day since the turn of the year.

The decision for a place of work of this kind was made consciously, because before that I had had almost two years of co-working experience in the Stuttgart region - with good experiences, even under Corona conditions.

I moved into my glazed mini office in spring 2020, when many office people were just adding a combined home office and school unit to their kitchen, and I was almost alone in a huge half-timbered house at first.

It didn't have a foosball table, but it did have a lot of what you would find hip in the start-up scene: here a stylish seating area, there a room in Banksy decor, beanbags on the terrace, a recording studio,

At first there were no start-ups

A group of nerds from an internal innovation laboratory had been pulled out of the case, a few self-employed people often received mail, but were not sighted.

Except for Albert in the glass case next to me, who usually programmed quietly to himself, but also liked to practice his German skills in conversation with me.

We took turns filling the coffee machine with beans and water.

And we made a video on how to load a dishwasher - because the daily amount of dishes made it clear: There are these invisible co-working colleagues and they apparently believe in brownies, or they really don't know how to put plates and cups in provides a dishwasher.

Sometimes you got something from these people.

About the lady who liked to roast fish in the oven and left the kitchen door open.

From Steffen, who left the house early in the morning to go to his actual workplace - he shot instructional videos for mechanical engineering at night.

When Roman came in the afternoon, the recording studio was audibly busy.

With his beats for advertising clips or company videos, he earned good money, if you can take his car as an indication.

Nothing to feel from Corona

Bastian, for example, who was able to give up his existence as a long-distance commuter because his team only communicated with each other virtually anyway.

Or Saltuk, who took severance pay when the auto industry was in a weak phase in order to show himself how to be really successful.

He arrived punctually in the morning, opened his laptop in one of the multi-person offices and started surfing and making calls so that his online business would soon flourish, or later – after the initial failures – his cybersecurity advice.

Adriano, a seasoned sales professional, founded two or three or five companies, all of which revolved around fascinating visualizations, high-tech at its finest;

only with the business model there was a problem here and there.

His office, packed with three desks, also featured brainstorming sessions with half a dozen people or more.

There was no sign of a corona wave, even if the exchange between various micro-enterprises and their freelancers was at times quite intensive and accordingly little distance was kept.

The only colleague who never wore a mask on principle was apparently not a superspreader.

And even after the small birthday party in that first Corona winter, thanks to distance and open windows, everyone remained negative.

However, we will always remember the unusual gathering in the pentagonal meeting room known as the “Pentagon”.

After all, at that time in Baden-Württemberg, all households had to go through life neatly separated.

Whereby: like a household, you feel easy in the co-working life anyway, like a large flat share.

Garbage and dishwashers, masks, noise and parking spaces - the conflict issues are similar.

If you want, you can also be nice, like in a shared flat.

Can you bring me something from the bakery?

Does anyone have a charging cable?

I'm cleaning out, anyone need files?

The digital call for help is popular: I forgot my key, can someone let me in?

Or – as now in my new “work household” – an urgent request before a hot weekend: “Can someone please refill the aquarium with cold water?” Someone is always there.

You don't have to worry about it, but you can.

Maybe just to exchange two or three sentences with a real person.

Sometimes it's enough just to hear noises from the coffee machine or the table football.

You are not alone.