By admin 
Once upon a time, it was socially acceptable to smoke inside, wear those mad, wide ties and pat your secretary on the bottom. Norms change, and that’s often for the best. But when it comes to laptops in cafes, falling from favour as owners lose patience with remote workers, I am begging society to reconsider. Don’t take my cafe nook – it’s the only thing keeping the WFH brigade and lonely freelancers like me sane.
My kitchen table, where I do most of my work, is fine. It’s got a window next to it. There’s a kettle I can use whenever I like. I can play my own music, make loud phone calls and migrate to the sofa when being upright gets a bit much. But variety is the spice of life, and truly I would lose my mind if those were my only options. Yes, I’m aware of co-working spaces, but they are a) full of awful people and b) I can’t afford one. Luckily, the buzz of the outside world, the soothing white noise of life beyond my keyboard’s tip-tapping, is only as far away as the nearest cafe – for now.
Flexibility to work anywhere is one of my favourite things about my job as a writer – yet, this great privilege has been abused by my fellow laptop nomads, to the extent that we risk it being taken away altogether. Shouting into Zoom calls, hogging tables while spending a pittance, it’s no wonder that our antics irk cafe owners – buying one cup of tea and sitting there all day is clearly bad manners, not to mention bad business.
It’s also true that a sea of laptops changes a place’s vibe, from chatty community hub to co-working space (insufferable, as discussed); no doubt the ratio of we laptoppers to other punters must be as carefully calibrated as our behaviour. Thankfully, after years of field research – I’ve been at this since before the pandemic, if you can imagine – I have developed a code of conduct to ensure the harmonious continuance of the cafe-laptop ecosystem. And you’re going to have to listen, because if we keep messing this up, it’s kitchen tables for ever, OK?
First rule is limiting cafe-laptop time to four hours, spending about £5 every two. If you insist on being in situ all day, you should buy at least one meal as well. Second – absolutely no Zoom or phone calls, no exceptions. It is the laptop worker’s job to integrate seamlessly into the cafe environment, not steamroll it with performative productivity. If you’ve got a call, stay at home or step outside, buddy.
Then, it should go without saying that you take the smallest table available – no lounging over a four-top when it’s just you and your MacBook. Also, don’t pester staff for somewhere to charge your phone or your laptop if there isn’t a plug socket evidently available – they’re there to serve food and drinks, not facilitate your makeshift office. And obviously – OBVIOUSLY – don’t play your own music out loud; it shouldn’t need saying, but a guy I encountered in Costa the other day certainly hadn’t got that particular memo. Fingers crossed he’s reading now, because otherwise our exile from cafes across the land is all but assured.
In summary, don’t overstay your welcome, pay your way, and behave as though you are grateful – rather than entitled – to be there. Basically: don’t take the mick.
Much as many Brits abroad make me want to crawl under a rock or assume a French accent, the conduct of some of my fellow cafe-laptoppers often makes me ashamed to count myself among them – but despite the understandable ill will towards us, there’s no reason we can’t get the show back on the road.
Cafes are not only a pleasant setting for work, but a natural one – as their intellectual origins testify, they’ve always been a place to nurture ideas. Generative and convivial, the atmosphere of a cafe is often just what I need to get moving with a piece of work that’s dragging its feet – but also, it reminds me that other humans exist (I believe most people get this from offices?). Truly, a resource too valuable to lose. Just think, if we really do get turfed out, left only with kitchens and co-working, I might have to resort to getting a real job.