I work at a marketing startup in Palo Alto, and we have an office in a co-working space. Our primary customer is founders of other startups, so we had an idea for a funny guerrilla campaign where we would try to convert other startups in the co-working space. We were never really planning on getting any clients this way, but we just thought it would be funny to post about it online.
The first thing we did was buy a bunch of drinks and snacks for everybody, brand them all with a sticker, and fill the company fridge with them. This was only done for the photo op, and then we immediately removed it all! But other founders in the building who had seen our LinkedIn posts came and asked, "wheres all the sponsored snacks?"
The next thing we did was "take over the elevator". Our CMO set up a little desk in the elevator with a "Free LinkedIn help" sign, and would give people advice on optimizing their LinkedIn profiles when they stepped into the elevator "office hours". We had a little camera in the corner, and got people’s consent to post the videos.
The third and final thing we did was tape hundreds of pieces of paper with "Free Linkedin Help" to the mirrors in the bathroom. Again, this was ONLY for the photo op, we took them down right after.
Well, turns out the co-working space did not have a sense of humor about any of this. We got an email from the head of legal (seriously) telling us that we had to stop, and that they would not be allowing us to renew our lease. Our lease ends in 7 days! No joke, we are now out of an office and scrambling to find a place before our lease ends on Friday.
The co-working space’s lawyer (and some other people online) think I’m the a-hole for doing obnoxious things that annoyed other tenants. I think I’m not the a-hole because it was all fake, it didn’t annoy anybody, and it was all silly fun stuff anyway.
AITA?
YTA
Apparently you were annoying enough that it caused complaints. If it was escalated to legal, I suspect there were ramifications outside of what is laid out in this post.
If you are sharing a working space, playing pranks like these can actually be very disruptive. It’s very unprofessional.
YTA that’s why everyone hates marketing y’all are obnoxious and lame
and not funny
am i right?
Even though you didn’t mean to annoy, that is the unintended consequence of your choices. Own up. Apologize and try to make amends. You might get to renew your lease. But also look for different office space. JIC. Are you the asshole? Unintentionally yes.
YTA. Desk in the fucking elevator???
yta
If it “didn’t annoy anybody,” you wouldn’t have gotten the email. This is probably the dumbest PR stunt I’ve heard of: nobody benefitted, and you’ve exposed yourself to massive risk by annoying (truly!) potential clients, who could easily run to social media and pull the rug before y’all even get off the ground. Humor me: if the people you “jokingly” bought drinks and snacks for didn’t even get to enjoy them, what did you do with them? Throw them away? In an area rife with homelessness? Why would you make your core service offering a joke? So many questions. Silicon Valley will never cease to amaze me with their endlessly multiplying stupid ideas enabled by stupid money. Obvious YTA.
YTA and you need to grow up. Frankly I’m surprised anyone can stand to work with you or hasn’t tried to have you fired.
YTA. You should have cleared this first with the co-working space. You also needed to clear this with everyone else in the space. This was very poorly implemented, and you are seeing the consequences of your actions.
If you had asked for and received permission from the co-working space and the other founders BEFORE you made your photo ops, then you would not be the asshole.
Unfortunately, you did not. Moreover, you DID annoy the other tenants and the owners of the space.
So, YTA. YT maxima A.
I don’t know about this one. To me it sounds like each thing you did was over pretty quickly, no one got hurt, and it sounds like your team had fun with it. Obviously someone had a problem with what you did or at least did not think it was fun. Did your team break the lease contract by doing this?
Update: The co-working space offered to throw us a going away happy hour in the main lobby of the building. They need to stick to their guns, but looks like they want to get in on the viral fun.