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ANYONE WHO’S EVER been stuck in a remote working rut and felt suffocated by their own four walls will know how refreshing it is to head to a café and get some work done.
The buzz in the background, the change of scene and the chance to interact with other actual human beings provide a welcome and much-needed break for many.
But is it time cafés pulled the plug on the laptop squatters who buy one coffee and hog a table for hours on end?
Yes, it is.
And this is coming from someone who is a digital nomad. As a freelance writer for most of my working life, one of the great advantages is that I can pitch up anywhere there is Wi-Fi and get my work done.
Most of the time I work from home, but often I head to a café, laptop under my arm and happily work away sipping on my latte and its fumes for a couple of hours. But I never hang around for more than two hours, certainly not for an entire day and never at peak times. It’s simply not on to set up camp in a café, order one drink, and expect that token purchase entitles you to treat the place as your office for an eight-hour stint.
Yet people do it more often than you’d think.
And the sense of entitlement that comes with it is hard to believe. These laptop squatters often seem to completely forget they are in a café and not back in their own office or home.
Everything from talking at full volume about sales targets on a Zoom call (often without headphones) to pacing the cafe floor with earbuds in as they discuss key performance indicators is a regular occurrence. They often unapologetically take up tables for not just two or four, but even six, and stay there through peak lunchtime hours.
You see people do things like take off their shoes, ask for the café music to be turned down so they can hear their work calls, and treat the staff like their personal assistants, asking them to watch their laptops while they go to the bathroom or send over another coffee while they are at it, even though it’s counter service only.
I’ve even heard of people sneaking in their own sandwiches or nursing a glass of free tap water, once the one-purchased coffee has dried up.
While the more corporate-style franchises like Starbucks, Nero, or Costa initially courted this type of clientele, offering a multitude of plugs, Wi-Fi, and seats for one, you get the sense that even they are becoming cheesed-off with this behaviour. Indeed, coffee mega-chain Starbucks has recently installed panic buttons for staff encountering laptop lurkers who get testy when challenged on their tight-fisted behaviour.
And if these heavy hitters are calling time on it, what of the smaller, independent local cafés who don’t have the backing of a corporation behind them? The bottom line is, it’s about time cafés got tough with hybrid hobos who are too stingy to shell out for more than a single beverage.
Recently, a Welsh café caused an internet storm by putting up a sign to say it was banning laptops and tablets from its premises on weekends in a bid to stop people sitting there all day, taking up tables, using the Wi-Fi and ordering just one coffee. It follows the same tack of many European cities who are equally fed up with laptops sucking the soul out of café culture.
And I think it’s about time Irish cafés did the same.
Coffee shops are meant to be social spaces. Most are community-oriented places for all ages, and a valuable one that doesn’t revolve around alcohol. By their nature, they are about the buzz, the interaction, the coming and the going of different people, the hustle and bustle. When it becomes a sea of laptops, it loses its heart.
Of course, every café will have its own vibe and attract its own style of patrons. Plenty pitch themselves as quieter spaces to sit down, read a book and enjoy a coffee in.
Sometimes there is nothing nicer than getting lost in a great conversation with a friend over a coffee for longer than you intended. Even these places have to make a buck, though, and they won’t do that on a single coffee per customer over eight hours.
Whatever about the decline in generic franchise coffee shops, when the local, independent one closes, it can rip the soul out of a town.
It’s hard not to get the sense that laptop loiterers have been taking liberties for too long, especially when cafés aren’t the only space available for them. Libraries are a viable option. Some require membership or advance slot booking, but they are free and offer the necessary facilities. The quality does vary from town to town of course, but purpose-built remote working hubs are widely available.
Cost is the big issue here, though. The Governments Connected Hubs Voucher Scheme, which aimed to offer at least 10,000 hot desk working days free of charge, has come to an end. Renting a desk space for a few days a week in the city centre can be pricey and so it’s not hard to see how nursing even an overpriced latte for a few hours can be an attractive option.
Still, there’s got to be a balance, and cafés shouldn’t be behind the door in asking for a bit of fairness from the hybrid working set. Be it imposing time limits during peak hours, asking those sitting-in during busy periods to order food, or just turning off the Wi-Fi, it’s time they got tough.
Niamh O’Reilly is a freelance writer and wrangler of two small boys, who is winging her way through motherhood, her forties and her eyeliner.
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