Dark gossips circling around coworking

[Nicolas Bergé]

Hi everyone,

I really wanted to share this short story with you. It probably doesn't have any special interest. Strangely enough, it still today makes me laugh a lot. Perhaps it's worth sharing the laughs. Here's the story :

It happened early this week. A member of Les Satellites came to me after lunch to talk about projects he has in mind. During the discussion, he suddenly remembered that he heard something really funny about us outside (this wasn't the purpose of the discussion, he just remembered this). These was his words (translated from French) : "Ah, by the way, Nicolas, you should know that the first dark legends about Les Satellites are in the air. A friend of mine told me yesterday on the phone to be cautious about coworking and Les Satellites. This place, he said, is - AND THESE ARE HIS PROPER WORDS - full of dangerous freemasons".

Wonderful, isn't it ? I laughed immediately. And I urged myself to spread the words throughout our entire community. They were all puzzled about this.

Then I thought about it. There is three things I think.

First is the "dangerous" part. It could be linked directly to freemason, a sort of pleonasm. But it could not. I can easily imagine "good" freemason and "bad" freemason as well as "good" people and "bad" people. Nah, the thing is that I sometimes imagined what could be the rumours about coworking and everything related to community, social gatherings and every stress we put on words that are valued to us. I imagined everything from communism to hippies and utopians. Everything that wouldn't surprise me as much as this. I like being dangerous by my impact, my values, my independance. I don't like being dangerous because what I do, what we do, is unclear - I won't say secret.

Second, of course, is freemasonry. Actually I strongly believe that the person who starts this gossip doesn't know much about freemasonry *and* coworking. Point.

Third is the laugh. I laughed because I consider this as a good joke. I don't want to spend any piece of time I have on struggling this rumour. What for ? Sharing it with you is like telling a friend a good joke about what is said on coworking and its members. "Hey do you know what is said about coworking..." You should try this with your coworkers and see what occurs. Rumours are great, I know it now. Every kind of rumour. Because it is told as a story full of imagination. It's light and *should'nt* harm.

And this is it. What do you think ?

I think it's always worth telling good jokes : )

Nicolas Bergé

Les Satellites

[Tom Brandt]

That's pretty funny!

There is a word in English, "freelancer", which is a person who works for himself by selling his expertise to whomever will pay for it. I imagine the original freelancers were mercenaries who sold their services and lances to whichever warlord paid them. 

I don't French at all, but I wonder if there was some confusion between "freemason" and "freelancer".

Nicolas Bergé

Les Satellites

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twb
member, Workantile

@twbrandt

[Nicolas Bergé]

: )

No, no possible confusion.

Actually we do use the word "freelance" in French with the same meaning you put : "Je travaille en freelance" meaning "I am a freelancer". And we have the "indépendant" word for independant (quite the same).

Freemason in French gives : "Franc Maçon".

Now you French more : )

Nicolas Bergé

Les Satellites

[Flambard]

Communists, hippies, utopians or here (first time) freemasons... Very true that coworking spaces and more generally community driven initiatives are particularly exposed to theses kinds of stigmatizations. This is sad to see people trying to interpret theses new models with the broken glasses of the past, adding to this intellectual laziness all their prejudices and fantasies - to often determined by simplistic collective typifications.

I am afraid they have to enlarge their conceptual universe; society is more and more granular and the great thing about coworking is that everyone is free to have its own personal opinions, as diverse as this could be, as long as their is mutual respect. Live and let live I guess - Ups :)

[Nicolas Bergé]

Yep Antoine.

True story.

Nicolas Bergé

LesSatellites