Health & Fitness
Get to WORK, Petaluma!
WORK offers mid-century style, 21st-century office perks, and community for freelancers.
It was the mid-century décor that first drew me to WORK. Much of it was sourced at my favorite mod retailer, Vintage Style. I’d peeked in one night and was waiting for a good reason to visit. The August 17th Grand Opening Mid-Mod Soiree was it. Dreamed up and pulled off by owners Natasha Juliana and Matt Moller, with authenticity and intelligence supported by Marissa Patrick from Chick-A-BOOM! Vintage (emcee, clothing), The Shop (hair and makeup) and Nick’s Cove (classic appetizers), the fashion show and 60s-themed food and beverages drew rousing applause from the curious community at large and I was hooked on WORK. This week, I cycled down for the ten am Tuesday Coffee Break to find out how this place came to be.
Natasha, with a background in architecture and a passion for sustainability, and Matt, former jet traveler as an engineer for Rovi, P-towners for just four years, knew that their lifestyle was depleting the planet when they wanted nothing more than to empower the community and leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. Renting office space from a friend to write her upcoming book, My Quick Green Life, made Natasha feel both isolated and distracted, and she knew that while she worked alone, she wasn’t alone in her conundrum.
Ralph Scott, freelance editor and writer, gave me a ten-minute testimonial on how WORK works for clients like him, the gist being that the coffee-house office routine slowly breaks down a freelancer’s concentration, and may eventually negatively affect his career. Going to WORK focuses energy on the work at hand and offers a community for the freelancer. As Natasha says, “in this world of Facebook, Google and Wikipedia, we’re so used to open source information, it makes no sense to keep our ideas to ourselves. Collectively, we can do more.”
WORK is still evolving, with plans to continue innovating, adding more opportunities to share and collaborate. And it’s affordable. Prices range from a $20 day pass to $375/month for 24/7 access, including discounts on classes and 8 hours/month of conference room use. While there’s still space, WORK is offering two free days at work or two free hours in a conference room to anyone in the community. There’s no reason not to get to WORK.
