Forget Starbucks, work at the library instead
davecaolo.com
davecaolo.com
The only real downside to the library was that you couldn't get on the phone during the day without going outside.
The nicest thing about the library is that it works well exactly up to the point where you need and can afford an office.
Unlike the coffee shops, which mostly lose out by being packed full of people who buy one cup of coffee per hour, the library basically exists for the purpose of providing a quiet space for knowledge work. You fund it with your taxes. Library architecture in most metro areas is excellent. You should work out of the library.
Also, I read your last sentence as "You should work out in the library," and imagined laying down under a cart full of large hardcover volumes, trying to grunt very quietly while pressing it. Just sayin'.
Two things to realize:
(1) The library staff is a lot more nervous about the library being empty than they are about it being full. Something about busy libraries being the reason they get paid.
(2) If libraries have headache clientele, it's the homeless. I had no idea what a mess that situation was until I started going to the library every day.
This I can attest to.
At our local public library there's a lady who is constantly picking up and re-shelving kids books only to have some kids take a bunch out and toss most of them on the table or the floor.
When I asked her if she wasn't frustrated, she said counter-intuitively that she's actually happy to come in to the section and find a ton of books to re-shelve.
The staff (and/or branch policy) ultimately decide what to do if a group of people is obviously using the library as a kind of temporary office, and they may request you make more formal arrangements. (The branches I worked at always had back rooms that could be rented out to tutors.) With several people, noise may be an issue. Still, one person typing, or two or three people working with occasional quiet collaboration is probably on par with a couple teenagers studying together. Just be considerate.
Libraries are paid for with tax dollars, and (as tptacek noted) staff are generally more nervous about empty libraries. Branch funding is often closely tied to usage stats - people coming through the door each day, circulation, internet station sessions, etc.
Also, depending on the neighborhood, the staff are probably more worried about drunk and/or mentally ill street people, misbehaving teenagers, etc. (Oh, the stories...)
* Great job to have through college, BTW.
But if you're in a group or rent a lockable study room, it's less complicated.
Oh, yeah, and fewer exits. The coffee shops I go to all have one exit, so if I want to go outside and grab a phone call, I just keep an eye on the exit. There's no other way anybody's leaving with my stuff.
So, while probability of theft may be higher in a coffee shop, it's rather harder to pull off, logistically.
Didn't the fluorescent lighting (weird, flowery lighting fixtures) and homeless guys bother you? Or the kids that fight/argue and get kicked out by the security guards?
I definitely work better in the library than in coffee shops, but I'm too spoiled to do it full-time now. My concentration isn't what it used to be.
Makes me think of the beginning of Ghostbusters (although IIRC that was Columbia's library).
My two complaints about Copley BPL is that they don't have nearly enough outlets for laptops, and their WiFi can be spotty in places. Of course, maybe Bates Hall will solve all those problems... ;)
They're good with the homeless too. Security guards walk all over that place constantly and wake anyone up who's sleeping. The bathrooms though, arg, across the street to Starbucks please. :)
You can usually identify them by very generic terminology about internet business and (seriously, every one of them) a paper planner.
EDIT: Ah man. It closes at 6pm alot of the nights. I usually like working later than that.
I then tried a public museum with a study centre, only to be told after a few weeks that I couldn't plug my laptop into their mains supply! (I believe that really they just wanted to get rid of me, since the rest of the study centre was always empty, and it was clear that I was programming not studying their collection.)
Finally, the best option of all is a museum that has a private members' room. I'm often the only person there. Not only that, but there is a cafe in the members room', and toilets just outside. And all for about $100 a year. I don't think the Members Room has wifi, but that's not a problem for me. I avoid microsoft whenever possible, but my Windows Mobile phone allows me to share its internet connection (and the sharing works with os x, windows, and linux).
When I want some relief from work, I go for a stroll round the museum. I love libraries, but I find the visual stimulus of thousands of different artifacts a fine contrast after staring at words on a screen for a couple of hours.
I'd probably find the proper channels to report such wasteful practices.
I'm in continuing disputes about the local government's wastefulness, laziness and lack of care. We had no drains outside our house for years, and it took almost 4 years and 17 complaints to get it sorted - despite them having an office that overlooked the street that flooded when it rained heavily!
They charge us about $1500 for additional services - principally cleaning the area between the house and the street - which they spend no more than 20 minutes a week cleaning. I've taken to photographing the dirt and refuse, as I'm refusing to pay for these poor quality and very costly services.
If everyone else refused to pay for these services, they would not have the money to waste on over-heating the library.
When I worked at coffee shops a few days a week (or a month), I went specifically to get some new background noise and new background scenery.
Although, I suppose a library offers even fewer distractions than home does, and you do have to wear pants.
1) It is good to be in an environment where others are hard at work because you'll be less likely to screw around.
2) It feels like you are doing something fun (you are "out") and at the same time working hard.
3) Home can be quite distracting unless you are fortunate enough to have a large house with a nice office.
There is tons of psych research on the effect of isolation on humans. Basically, it drives you insane. It is literally a form of torture. We are social creatures, designed to live in packs and tribes. Even an antisocial human is a relatively social creature.
It isn't easy to believe this until you've tried it. But I spent a year working out of my home office, and now I have a cubicle in an office again, and it is astonishing how much happier and more productive I am when I'm surrounded by other people, even if -- indeed, especially if -- they don't interact with me very much.
Of course, there is plenty of other research (not to mention lots of anecdotes from folks like PG) on the benefits of not being interrupted when you're trying to program. So what you really want is the library, where there are fellow humans around, but nobody will approach you or even speak in a loud voice. (Or perhaps you want a fishbowl office like the one Joel Spolsky built, where you can see lots of other people but you can't hear them.)
About the no interruptions - I can't remember the last time someone's interrupted my at Starbucks. But that could be that I always have my headphones on and have my eyes fixated on my laptop screen or book.
This works best if you can have a separate room as your office, however.
For some reason our local libraries block instant messengers, some webmail (but not https Gmail), and VPN connections. If it weren't for our http/https VPN setup, I wouldn't be able to do any online work there.
They also have few laptop-friendly seats. The big library near me has just two grown-up sized tables and you usually have to squeeze onto a table with a couple others. The smaller library has 8 study cubicles, most without power outlets, but it also has a park next to it where you can catch the wifi from some picnic tables.
- Pets - TV - Fridge/Pantry - Kids/Wife/Husband/Roommates
Beyond that, there are many opportunities for your non-work life to interrupt your work life. It's a culture thing, being that there is absolutely no work culture at your home where there is one at a place with others.
I'm actually in the process of setting up a coworking facility down here in Atlanta. We're going to have two rooms to satisfy both camps: The Loud Room and The Quiet Room. Each caters to a specific goal and lets people use the space they want to without inconveniencing others. It's sort of a coffee shop next to a library. Best of both worlds :)
I live where Midtown borders downtown and am a self-employed telecom consultant - basically a glorified one-man show.
Looks like you're right next door, if this is the Borders next to City Hall East :)
Still, I do enjoy it from time to time as a change of pace. Mostly I've started working at our local co-working place in Rochester - unlimited coffee, no worries about leaving your laptop if you need to run an errand, etc.
The best part was when the piano player started at 5:00 we knew it was about time to wrap up (and sometimes grab a scotch). That was a good way to end a day.
Libraries, however, are a great choice for telecommuting (especially when home is full of temptations for distraction).
FWIW, GT's library does rock. They have quiet area as well as group areas and a great set of workstations as well. The only thing missing is a decent coffee machine.
However, one thing to be aware of is that a lot of parents use libraries as excursions/free daycare and librarians are reluctant to yell at kids. Not that I blame either of them (good job, parents. Let's get those kids reading early!), but have some headphones for when the usual decorum breaks down.
Still, it beats the over-commercialized folk music and hissing espresso machines of the coffee shop.
I've thought about taking the dogs, my lappy, and finding a nice shady spot to sit down outside the library, and seeing if I can get some work done...but I never seem to be able to pull myself away from my desktop, mouse, and 24" monitor. Maybe tomorrow.
One downside of the library is that it's often not convenient to grab a cup of coffee or snack. The main branch in SF has a cafe, but it's way in the basement. The Chinatown branch doesn't have any food or drinks.
- Lack of large display. I can't really do anything serious on a laptop anymore. I know I used to before large displays are affordable, but it just feels indispensable now - for development work, at least.
- LATENCY! Public wifi hotspots suffer from lack of QoS policing or fair queueing, and there are always going to be a few annoying people with virus-laden Windows laptops around to help slow things down. I work on large telecom systems that pretty much require me to do my development remotely via SSH and/or SSHFS and/or NFS over VPN; there is no local development alternative for me. I can't cram my stuff onto a laptop. So, if I have to deal with substantial lag (consistent or spikes) over an SSH session my productivity just circles the drain.
This captivating distraction aside, I am pretty sure all the Dominicks offer free wifi, descent work environment and of course cheap foodstuffs.
It's funny though: I don't mind a loud cafe. Maybe it's because there are many voices, and it becomes a white-noise/hub-bub. But just one conversation is very distracting. iPod helps, but it's not always enough.
> "there’s a much better - and cheaper - option just down the road. My library."
I disagree, I think coworking spaces are a far better option than the library! Far cheaper than office space, environment for working and actually talking to a co-worker or two, no social isolation, it just makes so much more sense.
If you're in the Bay Area, mid-Peninsula, the San Carlos library has rooms with whiteboards. Plus, it's only a ten minute drive to the likes of EA, Oracle, etc.
Not entirely true. Borders is probably the only place I know that still charges for wifi. Everywhere else it is either free or you get two hours free by entering some kind of code.
(Carnegie Library Oakland, Carnegie Mellon Hunt, and Pitt Hillman, if you must know.)
In addition, all of them are surrounded by coffee places, so you can stretch your legs, get a coffee, maybe work at the coffee shop for a change of pace, then return to the library for better concentration. I have studied for exams and worked on long projects this way.
A former office mate and I would often run through all the options we had for coffee. The coffee maker in our office and the beans my office mate ordered from Hawaii. The sludge in the lounge coffee maker. Walk down the hall to the department's espresso vending machine (which makes surprisingly good latte's). The stand selling coffee and espresso one building over. Or walk about a block to the two coffee shops across the street from each other (Starbuck's and a local place).
Is coffee culture taken to such extreme in other places, or is this a Pittsburgh thing?
Seriously, you're eating $3 slices of pound cake and drinking $4 coffees when for that amount of money you can have ham sandwiches for a week?