Can I ask residents working in the community room to stop treating it as a quiet office?
NeighboursI unfolded the table for our evening board game, and a neighbour held up a finger at his laptop: “I'm in a client call.”
It was six-thirty. Three residents have started working in the building's community room during the day. There is no separate office booking arrangement. The room still has its old timetable for evening activities, including our Wednesday game.
I packed the game away while his call finished. Then he asked us to keep our voices low because he had another call at seven. I said, “Then perhaps you need an office,” more sharply than I intended.
Working there seems to help them. They live in small flats, and I don't want to campaign against daytime laptop use. I do want to use a room we have arranged to use without negotiating with somebody else's microphone.
Should we ask for a clear handover time before evening activities, or for work calls to stay within particular bookings? Right now the people arriving for games look like the interruption, even though our booking was already on the wall.