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What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

nytimes.com

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Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#171

Post by collyw »

randycupertino wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8

> At Triniti, Mr. Wynn offers free Wi-Fi, but after two hours a customer must have “a face-to-face interaction” with an employee, he says, to get a new password This is the best approach. (The "a staff member will approach the uninitiated customer whose laptop is open for more than a couple of minutes with a gentle but firm request ‘to finish up what you’re doing and close the laptop, please,’ approach is the worst.…

Or just set a purchase minimum. Must buy $x worth of stuff for every few hours you spend there. Seems fair. Cafes aren't your free all-day office offering complimentary wifi for the price of a $2 coffee, they're businesses trying to make money to pay their rent.

Maybe you could have a wifi system that disconnects after a set time period. Buy something and your code gets renewed.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#172

Post by csomar »

taneq wrote: post #2

How common is it for people to do actual, regular, serious work at coffee shops and the like? I've tried a couple of times and I always feel like such a pretentious wanker when I pull out a laptop and start working on stuff, like I'm somehow broadcasting "oh look at me, I work remotely, aren't I special?"

I can get 2/3 hours sometimes of serious hacking work on a noisy, busy coffeeshop. The combination is 3-4 days of isolated work and then boredom and then boom. Working alongside of very annoying people can work.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#173

Post by robotmay »

This is such a bizarre stance. "Finish up what you’re doing and close the laptop, please" would have me leave a venue immediately and never return.

In the UK the concept of people taking up space in coffee shops and not spending enough is not limited to people on laptops. You're just as likely to see an entire crowd of teenagers with one drink between them, or a group of mothers with pushchairs hanging about for hours (though I suspect the mother groups are good customers to have).

Personally I make sure I buy something at least every 30-45 minutes, and then relocate somewhere else if it gets busy. Cafes are rarely busy during the work day, so it's not like I'm depriving them of space.

But I've never come across a cafe with the approach of the ones in the article. Pretentious nonsense like that doesn't survive long here. If you want people to spend more money, ask them to leave if they haven't bought anything within the last hour. That's a simple rule that's easy to enforce, don't just blame a subset of customers.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#174

Post by scarface74 »

csomar wrote: post #170
scarface74 wrote: post #160

I don't work in coffee shops - or drink coffee for that matter - but I do take long lunches at times at restaurants just to just take a break during the middle of the day and take my iPad and go through my RSS aggregator. There is something relaxing about the combination of being around other people and still not having to interact with them. I don't get it either. It's the same way about going to the gym. On one han…

> There is something relaxing about the combination of being around other people and still not having to interact with them. I don't get it either. We are social animals. At least most of us. If you go for a few days with no interaction/seeing other human beings you'll go crazy.

I'm married with a teenage son so it's not about being isolated. But it takes mental energy for me to actual interact with people. Being alone in a crowd is sometimes the best of both worlds. I get to be around other people and don't feel isolated but I can also relax and don't have to interact.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#175

Post by freeloop3 »

1337biz wrote: post #95
taneq wrote: post #2

How common is it for people to do actual, regular, serious work at coffee shops and the like? I've tried a couple of times and I always feel like such a pretentious wanker when I pull out a laptop and start working on stuff, like I'm somehow broadcasting "oh look at me, I work remotely, aren't I special?"

Reality is nobody cares about you in the (semi-)public. Unless you of cause go really crazy. Determine your actions based on the imaginary judgement of completely random strangers is going to serverely limit the way you live your life.

> Reality is nobody cares about you in the (semi-)public. Unless you of cause go really crazy.

A few people have been saying that. But, how can you possibly know? It sounds like a platitude one tells themselves in order to not feel self-conscious, rather than an actual discernable fact.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#176

Post by slivym »

wjh_ wrote: post #137

There's a place I often visit in Shoreditch called Ziferblat[0], and I think that they have something of a solution to this (they have other places too). Essentially, you are charged for your time and everything else is free. Presently I think it's about 7p per minute for the first hour, and then 4p a minute afterwards - there's also a cap. While in there, coffee, snacks, etc, are all "free". Perhaps this sort of mod…

This doesn't seem like it's a solution to the problem, it's just a different type of venue with the opposite problem. If I go in and grab a coffee and a crumpet they're not going to be very happy.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#177

Post by JoeAltmaier »

robotmay wrote: post #173

This is such a bizarre stance. "Finish up what you’re doing and close the laptop, please" would have me leave a venue immediately and never return. In the UK the concept of people taking up space in coffee shops and not spending enough is not limited to people on laptops. You're just as likely to see an entire crowd of teenagers with one drink between them, or a group of mothers with pushchairs hanging about for hour…

You have to find the space that's compatible with your needs. Don't blame the no-laptop space for being what it is, any more than the laptop-friendly one.

Perhaps its not just about spending money. A coffee shop is (by some people's ideas) a place for folks to socialize. Those other 'offenders' are socializing, so are compatible with those spaces. Sitting in silence at a machine makes for a boring space, which drives away the other sort of customer.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#178

Post by noxToken »

petecox wrote: post #155
hux_ wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not trying hard enough. I was at Trinity College Library, Dublin a few months back. There are few spaces that are more peaceful and inspiring to work in than that one. You have to understand that cafés like churches or pubs or the town square have traditionally been designed as the "The Third Space" in people's lives behind home and work. It were community building happen. It's designed for that, not for work…

free wifi to freeloaders who aren't students though?

I can't speak for all universities, but my alma mater allows public access on a limited basis. For example, you can apply for courtesy membership if you have a basic need for research purposes. It can be as simple as, "I'm trying to build a static analysis tool, and I need books or publications on ASTs."

It makes sense to me, because one of the tenets of higher education should be to serve in the interest of the community.

Re: What to Do When Laptops and Silence Take Over Your Cafe?

#179

Post by collyw »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #164
kylec wrote: post #41

I think the problem isn't so much that people are using laptops in cafes, but that some people will linger for hours (usually on a laptop, but sometimes not) taking up a seat that could be used by someone else. Maybe a loosely-enforced 1-hour maximum loitering time might help to get more people cycling through?

Cafes are places where people go to hang out with their friends, sometimes talking for hours, even though they only bought one or two cups of coffee. A couple of years ago, I reconnected with a childhood friend, after about 10 years of living far apart and only having very sporadic contact. We spent 6 hours talking about everything and nothing, after we finished our burgers. I would have been extremely annoyed if the…

Who's annoyance takes priority, you hogging a table for 6 hours annoying the owner, or you being annoyed when the owner kicked you out (or asked you to buy something) after a couple of hours?
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