True story time:

I had to convert space was so small that I LITERALLY had to put my table on wheels so that I could it slide it around and create enough space for me to move alongside it. The owner of the business wanted $700 per month for THAT space but gave me an option of giving her a 50/50 split on my income without anything else from her (no laundry service, no supplies, no support. Just access to her clients that she felt was worth this ridiculous ransome for an office space.) 

Mind you, this was in a nail salon where people are already paying a small fortune for their acrylics but paying cheap "asian" prices instead of the actual costs at the local, fancy American run nail salons. There was no way I could charge what I needed to for the rent being asked when her client base expected discount rates for massage because "asian nail salon". Did I forget to mention that I couldn't lock up and secure the office when I left and I learned that I was sharing my space and equipment with other salon services when I wasn't there too?

Two other times, I have had to convert a gym utility closet into a massage room. One was a rental (not an employer) and had enough space to work with spartan amounts of equipment and extremely limited storage options. This was offered to me at $500 per month but the location of my office? The far back of the gym that required you to walk through the free weights area, making this as hard to find, intimidating and awkward to get to as possible for anyone who was not already a member of the gym and comfortable around the heavy weights area.

It didn't get better. I had only been there a couple weeks and the people who utilized the free weights are decided to show how uncomfortable they were with my office being there and started leaving their weight benches or heavy weights in front of my door and obstructing it when I wasn't there. So, every day I showed up I also had to move a weight bench or heavy free weights that were deliberately placed in front of my doorway somewhere else.

As if that wasn't enough, the height of insult was when a gym member made an appointment and told me he left $200 on the table for me because he wasn't sure how much the massage was even though my rates were clearly written on the outside of my door and on my website. He knew exactly how much the massage was and I know exactly what he was suggesting with this overpayment he was offering. Just to drive home the absurdity (or racism) of his insinuation, remember that if you take one step outside my office door, you are literally standing on the gym mat and surrounded by free weights and heavy lifting gym members. There was nothing to suggest that anything but a massage was ever going to happen but still, he decided to go there. Because of creeps like that I now have the blunt, assertiveness of a 5 star military general and the sense of humor to go with it if you test me with this nonsense. I strongly recommend that you do not. First and final warning.

Also because of people like him, I refuse to work out of my home and instead look for safe, neutral spaces where there I have people within screaming distance of me.

The formula is that I need approximately 240 reliable massage client contacts to make a living doing this. That is alot of strangers to cross paths with to even get to 240... and I don't want any of the problem people in that group inside of my house. And here we are today, with me pulling my hair out while chasing down the impossible dream of a reasonable rent on a commercial office space because I just need a damn office that is safe, clean, neutral and won't require me to go into debt or raise my rates to over $100 an hour just to support the cost of rent.