Neille has a Point (see the last comment for Regular, with two sugars.) , the Starbucks article was also meant in a way that Starbucks is so popular because it is an office extension of the living room for many, many New Yorkers. I know the situation has improved recently, but I remember almost renting a room that had no doors. (it had a curtain). Or this other friend lived in a room with three walls. (It was a bit like a cubicle in a fashion studio.) Another friend who now moved back to Germany once rented a room that turned out to be a bunch of walls built around a bunk bed. (What she thought was a window, turned out to be a picture of a window.) Apartments can be tiny in New York. (I know some are not, and there are many great large, beautiful ones with spectacular views). Starbucks offers this predictable business friendly environment. (I can not find this Cartoon which I think was in the New Yorker, but might have been in the HBR where three business people enter a starbucks and order a workstation and lattes.) In a city where so many are writers and freelancers and small-entrepreneurs, Starbucks is like these Airport lounges for business travelers. A controlled, predictable environment. It is much easier to meet in a starbucks or to write a story in a starbucks or to even read the paper in a starbucks sometimes than it is to do the same at “home”. And then there are the distances. When we had an office in the woolworth building I would often have freelance meetings in the starbucks across the street from city hall, because I did not need to travel anywhere, it was a quiet place and it was less than an office somehow.
So while Starbucks is turning into an office for many New Yorkers, the Gym supposedly turns into the new living room. OK, maybe more than that, but that’s another story.
I have this strong feeling that I will need to rewrite this post a bit, but I need to run now, because I finally managed to get an appointment with a dermatologist this morning. The guy was so booked, I had to book almost two months in advance. Yesterday his “automated confirmation system” called to remind me of my appointment. Really. A Robot called our answering machine and even went through all the menue choices with her. “to confirm your appointment, press one”... And so on. My answering machine was not smart enough (yet) to give the right answers. My machines will call your machines... I will probably get 3 minutes with a real human being this morning. OK, have to run.