Oz Survival Guide 101: What's 'hot desk' anyway?

Living in the world's #25 most expensive city has its ups and downs. For me, I'm just thankful that I survived the first year, unscathed and in fact, I can't be happier to be here! Many have asked me for tips and insights about living & surviving in Sydney, which has me thinking a lot about sharing some of my experiences somewhere...I know this blog is called 'Culinary Bonanza' for a reason, it started as a food blog and I still love to share about my delicious finds. Maybe it's time to change the blog name, what do you think?

Anyway, just a heads up, this post is not very much food-related, but you'll still see some food shots as you scroll down just coz...I'm going to address one of the most interesting trend I observed lately: 'hot desk'. What on earth is that anyway? Scroll down fo mo, if you have a FOMO (pun intended).
Oz Survival Guide: What's 'hot desk' anyway? (www.culinarybonanza.com)
So imagine if you could just rent a desk in someone's office, or a space in a studio, or a practitioner room for your freelance consultancy projects on a day to day basis, without the hassle of going through the endless paperwork or wasting time with inspections or having to commit a certain period of time. This is the core concept of hot desk or some prefer to call it co-working.

Oz Survival Guide: What's 'hot desk' anyway? (www.culinarybonanza.com)

Sydney is ranked #25, for a number of reasons, one of the most complained about is prices of property. It is becoming harder and more expensive to rent, let alone buy properties here. That makes every square meter of idle / unused space in your house, office, garage, studio, warehouse, farm very valuable, for the sake of dicsussion, let's call it 'supply'. If you're a space owners, you want to make some extra $$, but ideally without the trouble of contacting property agents and doing the paperworks, advertising whatnots!

On the other hand, in this age of professional freelancers, we've become increasingly mobile and can work from literally anywhere with internet connection and electricity. These mobile professionals need professional space to work at, but they may not want to commit a long term or pay exorbitant bonds on rent. Now we're got 'demand'. Bear in mind that cafes are out of the equation here, because most cafes in Australia do not offer on-site wi-fi (surprisingly!). Plus staying from 9-5 with only purchasing a lunch and 2 coffees at someone's cafe would be viewed unfavourably, well unless you're friends with the cafe owner.

So where would you be advertising / looking to rent / lease a space like that? Gumtree (an Australian online marketplace platform) is one option, but most of the time, you can't even verify the credibility of the person messaging you. Risky business I'd say...

Then came Altspc...
Entrepreneurs Tim & Victoria then came up with an idea, to be exact a platform, to connect space owners and mobile professionals like myself. Basically with just a few clicks of a button, you can start working in a nice studio, or a sleek office, or someone's farm, you heard that right: a paddock in someone's farm! In layman terms, like AirBnB, but not for sleeping (duh!)

Last week, I tried out the platform and landed myself at this cosy space called Upstairs from Giulia, which is literally, the upper floor of a nice little cafe with slight mediterranean touch in Chippendale. The beauty of the concept: cafe owner makes some extra income from renting out their spare space, freelancers get a nice hot desk in this cosy & well furnished space to work from.

Altspc-Chippendale-(www.culinarybonanza.com)
Altspc-Chippendale-(www.culinarybonanza.com)
Altspc-Chippendale-(www.culinarybonanza.com)
Altspc-Chippendale-(www.culinarybonanza.com)
Oz Survival Guide: What's 'hot desk' anyway? (www.culinarybonanza.com)
Cheers to technology and Internet!
And of course, it helps a lot for bloggers like me to be working from a cafe...
Ellyna Tjohnardi at Cafe Giulia Sydney (www.culinarybonanza.com)
Cafe-Giulia-Chippendale-Sydney-www.culinarybonanza.com
Giulia Eggs AUD 16.90
Scrambled egg blended with haloumi, tomato, spanish onion and fresh mint. Includes your choice of 1 side (bacon / sausage / kafta - mediterranean sausage)
Cafe-Giulia-Chippendale-Sydney-www.culinarybonanza.com
Salmon Brekky AUD 18.90
Smoked salmon, spinach, poached eggs and homemade hash browns
PS: if you're an Altspc tenant, whisper a secret code to get special price on your coffee. Ask Altspc team for the details ;)

So what do you think of the concept? Keen to give it a try?

Have a great week ahead, everyone!

Altspc
Facebook: Altspc.co
Instagram: @Altspc

Cafe Giulia
92 Abercrombie Street
Chippendale, NSW 2008
Ph: +61 (02) 9698 4424

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