Gym etiquette: hogging the powerlifting station

[Wolfram]

Hey guys.

I workout in at a squash club that has a weight room upstairs. It's decently sized but there's only one real powerlifting station with an olympic bar. There's also a smith machine and 2 bench-presses and then a ton of regular gym-machines and some dumbells and fixed barbells.

Last friday I was doing my routine (squat, military press, pendlay row) without a partner, and this guy walks up and asks how long I'll be. I tell him I've got at least 6 sets left and offer that we do alternate sets, but he politely declines and goes and does his squats in a sled instead.

When I'm doing stuff like military presses, I could use the fixed barbells that are available, but then I'd have to return it to the floor inbetween sets and I couldn't use microweights. It's just that since I'm a beginner, I'm using small weights on the bar and I feel kinda silly hogging the heavy duty equipment while putting 10lbs weights on each side or something. But it feels more like a real exercise when I use the real stuff.

What do you guys think? How about when I'm working with a partner. Is it ok to hog the station for 30-40 mins then, because you are pretty much continually using it.