When you rent a meeting space, should it have heat? Chairs that are clean and not broken? We think so! Reader Mark does too. FedEx Office doesn’t.

Mark writes:

I work from home, and when I meet with clients it is usually at their place of business. Today I needed to meet with a client who doesn’t have an office, so it was my job to determine a professional place for us to meet for a few hours in a quiet office environment. I knew Kinko’s used to offer such a service and I contacted my nearest Chicago FedEx Office and reserved a conference room for $40 an hour.

When I arrived, the FedEx store was a disaster as they were remodeling. I wasn’t made aware of this when I phoned in to make the reservation. I was led to their second floor meeting spaces. The room I was ushered into looked like it was halfway through a demolition process. There was sawdust on the floor, spare and broken computer / A/V equipment strewn about, a broken table top propped against the wall, a dirty collapsible table and 5 or 6 mismatched and stained chairs. The walls were scuffed and the carpet was ripped and stained. I really couldn’t believe it.

That’s bad.

It was about 15 degrees outside. There was no heat.

That’s worse.

The FedEx Office staff did absolutely nothing to prepare for my visit. When the woman who showed me my room noticed the dirty table, she offered to clean it and came back with some damp bathroom towels and wiped it off. I was left to re-arrange the table and chairs and shove the dirty chairs into a corner and try to hide the debris as best I could. Check out the pictures, I think they speak for themselves.

My client and I shivered through our two hour meeting and kept our coats on throughout. We got our work done, but it wasn’t comfortable.

When the meeting was over, I went to the counter to pay and complain about the conditions and the two personnel I spoke to apologized and said they were having heating problems. (They could have mentioned that to me when I made the reservation over the phone.) I asked if I could have a reduced rate due to the condition of the room and the non-functioning environmental controls, and they simply replied with the total.

$80.40, please.

I paid the $80.40 and left. I am never going back to that or any other FedEx Office for my meeting space needs.

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