Some cafe owners generally prefer long-term 'residents', so to speak, because they're much more lucrative. There's a reason Starbucks invests so heavily in their store's furniture and ambience: customers who spend more time there buy not only more coffee, but more food as well.
Though I completely agree that if a place is plumb full and you've been sitting their for four hours, it's only polite to offer your table to someone else.
> There's a reason Starbucks invests so heavily in their store's furniture and ambience: customers who spend more time there buy not only more coffee, but more food as well.
I'm not sure that's a 100% logical conclusion. Would one interpret that to mean that the ~50 people who spend all day sitting in the chairs generates more revenue than the many hundreds of take out customers that pass through each day? Sure, perhaps they make more revenue per individual person, but if you look at revenue per customer type per unit of time, the sit down in store customers are by far the worst revenue source.
I don't deny there's a reason they choose to have attractive interiors, but I doubt it is to encourage individuals to spend an entire day there, so Starbucks can reap the windfall of selling the same customer breakfast AND lunch.
The people who get their coffee to go and the ones who sit at the tables are different segments (although there is some overlap).
Also, the sitting customers can be segmented as well: most of them will sit down for 15-30 minutes and leave, but there are some who will stay longer. It would be difficult for someway staying 4 hours to spend as much as 8 people staying 30 minutes each, so that's why djt talks about the need to turn over tables.
I 100% agree with you. I was questioning jmduke's assertion that 4 hour sit down customers are more lucrative. As I see it, they are the least lucrative customer.
The furniture isn't there to give the store ambiance, it's there to attract long-staying customers. And a store full of customers has a lot more ambiance than an empty store.
Trying to work with a laptop on a table in a coffee shop is either incredibly poor ergonomics or I'm doing it wrong, because it usually gives me back or neck ache.
I found the couches in some cafés work pretty well with a laptop, but they're always taken around London. Although there are quiet times outside of breakfast and lunch though.
I ultimately wish I could just work in a pub, but too many have been taken over by sports TV in my area.
Even better idea: work at a library. These are buildings designed to be quiet, meditative places, and they want you to be there all day. In addition, several libraries now allow coffee, and most have great Wifi.
Where do you find a library? If you are in the US, public libraries are a great downtown option. As a student at Stanford, I think great libraries are one of the biggest privileges. However, I think you don't need to be a Stanford student to get in! Like other universities, Stanford has a Federal Depository Service (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Depository_Library_Prog...), which means the public has a right to enter and read federal publications at no cost (Strangely, I couldn't find a open-to-public library at Harvard though)
For about a year I worked from home and due to impending cabin fever I decided to give coffee shops a try. It was super loud and I always felt like I had to keep moving and buy something. It was just distracting.
I then rediscovered my local library and was amazed. Fast Wifi, Keurig machine, and private study rooms that I could take for the entire day. I was even more amazed at how many people use it as a 'co-working space', one guy would even come in everyday and even set up his VOIP office phone.
4-5 years ago in Moscow club OGI had "izba-chital'nia" (this means exactly library, but for sovkhoz-kolkhoz: a house with books for peasants).
Drinks and food were terrible, but books were OK: in several languages, classics and modern writers. I loved this place, although I never tried to work there.
I work a lot from a wonderful coffee shop in Stockport (UK). I find myself much more productive over there than at home; the change of environment clearly toggles a "brain switch". The place is big enough that owners don't mind if I hang around all day, and wifi is great (no "The Cloud" bullshit, just a fat pipe to the intertubes). Usually I end up buying coffee and water as I get there; sandwich, coffee and water at lunch; and again coffee and maybe a sweetie in the afternoon -- around £ 20 in total ($ 30), which seems to be enough, because I never got any bad word or stare from waiters, unlike in other places. I often end up bringing friends and coworkers as well, so I'd say I'm a "good" customer.
I'm not shameless enough to claim it on expenses, but I'm sure freelancers could offset most of it against taxes.
Minority anti-social counter-point: For someone who enjoys a simple solitude while coding, this type of environment is anathema to everything that makes me productive. I admit that I struggle to find any appeal whatsoever in working in this manner, although I do love working remotely. Just not at a glorified fast-food joint... It's actually bewildering to me how you folks manage to get anything done. But I'm probably not their target market anyway. Just not for me :)
I find coding in a public, somewhat noisy place - like a coffee shop - pretty effective if you have a mundane but necessary task to do. The combination of ambient sounds to keep my brain busy while going through the boring parts, coupled with implicit social pressure of sticking to them ("Someone might have a glance at my screen, they better not see me browsing Facebook") makes it much easier to accomplish the task, compared to cozy, distraction-free environment of typical (esp. home) workstation.
A few years ago when I was visiting Buffalo, NY, and Apple had just started making a 30" iMac, someone came in with one and a slew of peripherals and then promptly decided to set it all up on the milk/napkin/straw bar.
Maybe occasionally. If you spend a lot of time hacking at a ergonomically-poor workstation (which coffee shops pretty much always are), you will suffer as you get older.
I'm not entirely sure I believe this claim. Ergonomically poor surroundings typically force you to change your stance often, because you get uncomfortable quickly. And in the long term, moving around a lot is generally better than standing still.
I suppose if you always sat in the same café in exactly the same position and got used to it, you might eventully develop problems.
Ergonomics experts always say the most ergonomic position is the next position. Getting out of the office chair that you use all other days of the year sounds like a win to me.
I've also found that adding these sorts of limitations to my work environment—no Wifi, for instance—can really boost my productivity.
I download local copies of documentation and APIs for reference and then set up at a coffee shop near me with no Wifi or power outlets. I find it's most useful at the start of a project when I have trouble just getting something down, sort of like staring at a blank page when you have a paper to write in college.
I learnt that the hard way and the only thing that helped afterwards was an ergonomic keyboard. For those who don't know, the wrist injury (RSI) is excruciatingly painful and will most likely offset any productivity gains you might have made earlier.
Back to the article, I don't quite understand that how "fewer distractions" can immediately be followed by "socializing and meeting new people".
Many years ago, when I was coding 16 hours a day with regularity, I suffered from horrible carpal tunnel pain on both wrists. My solution was two-fold.
First, I threw away the mouse and switched to a thumb-operated trackball (Logitech or Microsoft).
Second, I designed and fabricated my own desk. The easiest way to describe it is that this desk has a cavity into which the keyboard and trackball fit. With this design my wrists were fully supported and my hands drooped into the cavity to naturally make contact with the keyboard and trackball.
This worked wonders. I took a two week break from coding while designing and fabricating this desk (MIG welding and woodwork). By the time I was done the inflammation on my wrists was gone. I went back to coding long hours. The pain never came back and neither did the inflammation.
I was worried about carpal tunnel so I switched to a thumb trackball as well, but then I ran into a different problem. I started noticing pain in my thumb, far worse than the pain in my wrists had been. I was losing mobility in my thumb, and it became swollen and incredibly painful to move under any circumstance. I put the trackball in a drawer and started using my Thinkpad's mouse nub, and the pain in my thumb went away (though I am still concerned about carpal tunnel).
I haven't heard of this happening to anyone else, but in my experience trackballs can do just as much damage as a normal mouse, just to different joints. Now I use a trackball at home (occasional usage) and the nub when I'm working (heavier usage). The real key I've found to avoid repetitive stress injuries is to avoid repetitive movements of any kind. Seems kinda obvious now.
A good quality trackball with super-low friction is fundamental. I've had trackballs that developed pain on my thumb, just like you stated, very quickly. These were usually mechanical. The optical trackballs can be wonderful. Both Logitech and MS make good ones.
You have to keep them clean. Again, it's about super-low friction. You should have almost no resistance to moving the ball.
Don't just move with your thumb. I developed into moving the trackball with elbow, wrist and thumb-centered motions. In general terms, I think I only use the thumb knuckle-originated motion for when accurate positioning is required, for example, while using a CAD program.
Keyboard shortcuts rule. I don't have a metric for how much I use the mouse, but if I am doing anything repetitive I figure out the keyboard shortcuts or write keyboard macros. One example is in repeating operations in Photoshop.
I learned that you need the correct posture and kinematics in order to relax. This is where my "cavity desk" worked wonders. It made me aware of when I was tensing-up almost any part of my arm, all the way up to my shoulders. If you work extended hours there's no escaping the need to learn to be very relaxed. A standard desk absolutely sucks for computer use, no matter who makes it. They are designed for writing with pen and paper and that's it. Your wrists end-up angled upwards on both your keyboard and mouse or trackball. With a cavity and an adjustable chair your forearms are horizontal, your wrist is horizontal and your fingers very naturally droop onto the keyboard or trackball. That, as a combination, is what I think make a huge difference for me and could for others.
This reminds me of one thing I don't understand - keyboards that tilt up towards you. I find that wrists elevated and flat or slightly down is most comfortable, and the tilted keyboards cause me to bend my wrists up in an awkward way. Who decided that this was a good idea?
The cavity desk sounds like a more extreme version of the genal posture I find most comfortable.
I used to suffer from RSI quite badly but since I've taken to using my laptop more it's not been a problem. Typing on crappy desk keyboards seems to cause me more problems than my Macbook keyboard.
I think a lot of offices try to provide similar environments to coffee shops. Places you can go and work away from your desk, similar food and beverage etc. It's also worth noting that while you are able to focus more, great for a writer, it isn't necessarily better for teams of people trying to collaborate on a complex project.
I really need to work from Coffee Shops more often, but I get really self-conscious while sitting there getting on with my work. Further, I tend to skype quite a bit, which puts me off going to the coffee shops in the first place, since i don't want to be disturbing others.
> Further, I tend to skype quite a bit, which puts me off going to the coffee shops in the first place, since i don't want to be disturbing others.
And that's why the fascination with voice controls always confused me: the self-conscious aspect. That said, the population at large might care less about others overhearing them, if sites like http://notalwaysright.com offer any indication.
Oh, I only really think about the "lower-touch" aspect of it, especially while walking or jogging. I was referring to the apparent interest of marketers and the population at large.
I love working from the cafe at the local Barnes & Noble. We don't have office space yet anyway, so I have to work from either my home, or a coffee shop / bar / cafe / library / whatever... but even when we do eventually get proper offices, I'd still want to come work somewhere like that fairly often. I just enjoy being around people, having convenient access to tasty coffee beverages, and the overall vibe and bustle and activity.
That said, the downside is when you need to work as a group and actually need privacy. Or sometimes when you're doing something that requires deep concentration and extreme focus, then the noise and bustle can be distracting. But, by and large, I do like the "working from a coffee shop / cafe" thing.
The biggest issue for me in working in a cafe is confidentiality - its very difficult to keep work-related calls and designs under wraps.
For example, in the UK a doctor was recently struck off for transcribing patient details on a train - not the most sensible thing to do, but highlights that there are some jobs that require privacy.
Yeah, the need for privacy is the one thing that drives me to not want to work out of cafes and coffee shops at times. It's not that often that we are talking about anything truly secret / confidential (no patient data or anything like that), but still, there are certain things you don't want to broadcast to the world.
The other time it doesn't work, for me, is when you need use "stuff" to work. For example, sometimes if I'm meeting with my co-founder, I want an easel and a flip-chart pad and some markers to draw / diagram stuff. But I wouldn't want to bust up in the Barnes & Noble cafe and break that stuff out.
Agree, it's usually very hard to find a spot where your back is facing the wall. Especially as a single person. If you don't want to steal a 6-seater table the remaining option is usually the bar-window facing the street outside, meaning that everybody standing in line inside the cafe will have perfect view of your monitor.
I really agree with commenters who mention ergonomics as a reason NOT to spend a lot of hours in a coffee shop over a long period of time (months/years). I spent almost every work day in cafes for a couple years and feel like it was part of the root cause behind the significant neck/shoulder issues I have now.
I worked productively for a couple of hours in a kids play place at the weekend. The roar of kids acts like loud monotonous music. I also once wrote a key piece of a sofware system on a long flight. I agree with the author that variety is really important to keep you stimulated.
Also, please don't sit in cafes during peak times as that is when they make most of their money and need to turn over tables.
When it's quiet sit near a window to make the cafe look busier.
Ask BEFORE plugging in your laptop charger.
I know these are obvious to most people but I've seen people seemingly oblivious to it and most cafe owners are too nice to throw someone out.