I have worked in the people-facing service industry for most of my career. I worked for the French government (yes yes), in restaurants, cafes, and even the tourism industry…
It might sound harsh, especially if you’ve been one of my customers in the past, but the coliving Industry is the only one where I have felt the need to build genuine, authentic relationships.
As a waitress or restaurant manager, you are of course expected to be nice and friendly but neither party is under any illusion that you are performing a task part of the service they are paying for. With time you’ll probably build some rapport with a few regulars, which is lovely, but you will rarely open up to them about personal challenges, and there is almost zero chance they’ll ever see you in your pjs.
You are also very much replaceable, whoever is on shift that day should be able to deliver more or less the same quality service.
While in our kind of Coliving, you are a part of the product.
YOU’RE BUILT INTO THE SERVICE.
We have enough experience now to know that for things to go smoothly, we need to have our separate private space with Anton and Zuko. If only to let our color hoarding go wild.
Then there are the coliving buildings. About 3 seconds walk away. Spaces we still put a lot of love and some personal touches into, but that we design with (hopefully) enough flexibility and “make it your own” vibe in mind.
The fact that we do not sleep in the same house as the colivers does not mean we do not take an active part in coliving life.
We eat all of our dinners at the long wooden table, we put our names on the food rota, we host some workshops and masterminds, we are part of most excursions and adventures. We dance, we stretch, we clean, we laugh, we cry, and play together with them.
We are not self-centered enough to claim people love Selgars because of us, or that they come back because of us. After all, it is a beautiful house on luxurious land surrounded by a stream.
But we have to believe we play a part in it. Because we are built in. “Vi ingår i köpet” for the swedes reading this.
And so a weird thing happens: In all my other jobs I would deliver, wash my hands, and go home to live my life.
Here I am home, living my life, with these people in it.
And more often than not, they make my life better… richer even.
As “service providers”, we want our guests to be comfortable and have a pleasant experience.
As coliving owners living on-site, as humans receiving from our colivers as much as we give (and sometimes more), we want to be able to go above and beyond. Our first response is to act as a friend. Because honestly, that is usually what they become, Friends*.
That’s when it gets tricky. How do you remain a good friend, without jeopardizing your business?
How do you make your friends pay?
IT’S NOT BUSINESS IT’S PERSONAL… OR IS IT?
Just like Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan’s character) in You’ve Got Mail, I have always said coliving is personal. It is about the connections, the people, and the community first. It can’t be about the money.
The harsh truth is, at the end of the movie, Kathleen loses her shop (sorry for the spoiler but that movie came out 26 years ago).
Whether we like it or not, money rules our world, and Beyoncé knows it too. Colivings are businesses. At least most of them are.
We are running a business. A business that has to do with creating a sense of Home and belonging for people, in the place that We call Home. That blurs the frontier a lot.
The reality is, to be able to deliver the experience we have in mind for our colivers, we need to finance it, and for many, coliving is the only means of earning a living.
I have heard a few colivers complain through my travels “they are doing it for the money”. I think it may show how unfamiliar people are with coliving, still.
First of all, these kind of coliving communities are usually run by people who deeply care and love the idea of community, they would not get into it otherwise. But that does not mean they can live on love alone.
Second of all, if you really are after Money, coliving is not the way to go. As Oscar from Colivers Club said to me, the only way I’ll ever be a Mill-ionnaire is by owning a Mill.(Selgars’ a mill in case you’re lost).
Community and money should not be seen as antagonistic. With that money, we can keep the wheel going (wheel, Mill… got it?). Thanks to that money, we can do better next year, not just for us, but for others around us too.
However, money is always a means to an end. Because dreams are rarely free. But the end game is Community forever.
*If they stay long enough that is.
PS: I feel the need to say that:
this is my opinion only, at a given time. I am not trying to force any kind of "truth” on anyone. And I can also change my mind in the future. I have been known to do that. I hear it’s human. So take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Please do not take anything personally ( I am aware of the irony of that request). I get inspiration for these pieces out of everything and anything and I rarely have 1 specific person in mind when I write them.
The truth is, my dream is to live in a Smurf type of community without any money. And we might be able to make it true in the future, who knows? This is just a specific time in our lives and our Coliving journey. Which brings me to point 3:I am so so so grateful to anyone who has joined the coliving the last 2 years. Who trusted us when we were just starting, who helped us shape this place through their feedback, engagement, commitment, creativity, and through the rent they have paid. This would not be possible without you and we cannot wait to get even better and welcome you next season!
Thanks for reading! You could share this with a friend (or an enemy).