Our Guest Policy

Consider the Port your home and that like you, your guest is expected to follow our basic House Rules:

1. Be a good neighbor.
2. Don’t let strangers in after you.
3. Clean up after yourself.

These House Rules are designed to make our spaces (and your stuff) secure, keep our rates some of the lowest in the Bay Area and also provides important, life safety measures.

We certainly love guests, but please observe these simple guest rules.

Port Workspaces Individual Guest Policy

1. Your guest may come work in open, coworking space Monday- Friday. However, you may not have the same guest more than two days per month.
2. If you want the same guest to join your more frequently, they must purchase a Day Pass ($25 per day per person), or join as a Coworking or other type of Member.
3. Meet Your Guest! Port staff and First Mates are not receptionists. Please make sure your guest can contact you and make sure that you meet them at the door and escort them in and out of the building.
4. Sign them In!  Every guest must be signed in. We need to know who is in our buildings and how many people are there at any given time. This not only helps us be better hosts but is also an important life safety measure.

 

Conference and Meeting Room Guest Policy

If you’ve booked a conference room and have outside guests joining you, please observe the following rules:

1. We do not have a receptionist staffing our entrances and members are responsible for greeting all guests, including those participating in meetings with you.
2. You or another, card-carrying Port Member must greet your non-member guests. Please make sure your guests can easily contact you and ask them to wait outside a main entrance to be met by you and escorted to your meeting.
3. Please do not allow your guests to follow a member in or find their way to you. If they happen to get inside the building, they are required wait for you or one of your fellow members just inside the door.
4. Please also escort your guests out of our spaces after your meeting is over.

Please leave the conference room space ready for use by the next member. Bring coffee mugs, glassware or any other items back to the kitchen and throw away trash. And hey, it would also be great to erase all those great notes you took off the whiteboard!

 

Guest Policy FAQs

I’m a Desk Member and want to have a guest work with me. Can’t they just squeeze in beside me?

No. Your dedicated Desk at any of our locations is just for you. If your guest needs to work alongside you, please book a meeting room or find a location in an open, coworking area. Unless otherwise specified, all Desks are reserved for Port members.

 

I rent a Private Office, I can bring whoever I want into my space as much as I want, right?

Not exactly. Your Private Office provides a certain number of memberships and keycards. If you haven’t used your allotment of memberships and have the same guest (or intern, or staff member)  regularly joining you in your office, please see your Community Manager to have them added to our system as a Company Member.

If you’ve used up the member allotment/keycards associated with your office and you have the same guest (or intern, or staff member) regularly joining you, please see your Community Manager. They can help you add this person to your membership in the most cost-effective way possible.

 

Badging In and Why It’s SO Important

When you enter any Port Workspace, we ask you to swipe your keycard or “badge in” - EVEN if someone else is holding the door for you. In case of an emergency, we must be able to know how many people are in and who has entered our building. This is something that could be critically important in the case of an earthquake or other disaster.

We also use this information to assess usage of the space and peak times of entry. Some members have different access levels and the only way for us to monitor this is based on your access card usage. The better an idea we get of how many people are using our locations when, the better level of service we can provide you!

Please understand that these policies are for everyone’s safety and security in order to keep our prices the lowest in Oakland while never having to sacrifice the beauty and functionality of our wonderful spaces.

 

TIP: if you are a member at another location and hanging for the day, please introduce yourself to the Community Manager.  We like to know who's in the space.