OFFICE SPACE – A CALL FOR TIME LIMITS AT YOUR LOCAL STARBUCKS

I witnessed these lovely ladies at the Big Gay Starbucks in the heart of West Hollywood having some sort of conference or work meeting with their matching Mac Power Books placed before them.  When they pulled the shades down to shield themselves from the sun, I swore they were gonna bust out a projector and have some sort of power point presentation.  I totally pictured the one wearing the UGG Boots with the tight blond bun pulling out a long ruler and pacing back back forth while she projected numbers from a screen.

Welcome to Starbucks, where the office space is open for business.  The hours are limitless, the space comes with a nice open view of buff WeHo boys coming to and from the gym across the street and the price for this office space runs for as little as $1.25 for a cup of coffee with $0.50 refills, but I’m sure these lovely ladies were sipping on something that leans more towards a latte of sorts that runs for $4.25, which is still a steal when you get free WiFi in the deal.

I see the same faces all the time parked in the same hot spots as they pull work hours in practically rent-free space.  They give a new meaning to the words “working from home,” cuz they practically make themselves at home at this coffee joint.  I have nothing against these faces on personal matters; I just can’t stand these faces when I want a place to sit and can’t find one.  I know from experience that certain tables are out of the question, because once those laptops are cracked open, the tables that line up against a wall might as well have an Out of Order sign printed on them.  People have work to do on their portable computers, and when they are not working, they sit side-saddle on their chair staring at their phones while they go on a nasty ho-stroll in Grindr.

When did mixing business with coffee like this become OK?  And what’s in it for Starbucks when people can camp out at their tables all day long?  It’s interesting:  You rent a parking space for 25 cents in front of a street meter and a parking wench will fine you $65 to $85 if that rent space expires.  I have never witnessed the rent expire at your local S-Bucks.  Sometimes I’ll show up in the evening and try to work some quarters out of a barrista, so I can finish doing my laundry, and some of the same faces I saw earlier in the day are still sitting in the exact spots after the sun goes down.  The only time someone gets asked to leave is if that someone is homeless and smelly.  You can’t have the smelly at the office.

You wanna know what happens when my friends and I want to gather at a bucks and gossip over some coffee, but we can’t find a place to sit?  We buy our coffee somewhere else.  We know better than to stand around in the middle of the room for a table to open, cuz that shit could take hours.  We usually get stuck at   the Coffee Bean up the street where the less-than-pretty people go who are either growing out a bad haircut or nursing a nasty cold sore.  There’s always a place to sit where nobody can see you at your local Coffee Bean.

I have no problem with purchasing a cup of Joe from my favorite Starfucks and taking that shit home when I find myself alone.  I am a writer.  Unlike a lot of my fellow WeHo/LA scribes who like to be seen in the midst of their prose–or I should say–in their writing pose, I like to work from my actual home…ALONE!!!  I can’t stand looking at people when I try to form ideas into sentences, nor would I be able to stand people feeling the social obligation to stop by my table to say hello.  I wonder how much work actually gets done when there are so many distractions?

There is something outrageous and out of hand when you have people who feel their single cup of coffee entitles them to limitless hours at the local Starbucks.  People by nature will abuse the system.  I just find it curious that Starbucks Inc hasn’t come up with some sort of compromise to accommodate the patrons that just want to sit for a half-hour/45 minutes/an hour, while they sip their coffee and catch up with friends.

As for the lovely ladies that had–what appeared to be–a work meeting at the gaybucks…somebody should tell ’em that the new West Hollywood Library offers free meeting rooms where you can conduct an actual power point presentation with free WiFi and all the  office fixings.  Oh yeah, of course, those meeting rooms have time limits.

Luv,

Me