Starbucks pulling plug on laptop users?
Starbucks is well-known for coffee, but laptop users love their juice — electrical juice.
After 4 days and only 3 Cafe Americanos, the Starbucks manager had a bad feeling about this guy.
Now, a rumor is floating amongst the Interwebs that New York City Starbucks locations are replacing electrical sockets with blank faceplates, effectively pulling the plug on laptop (ab)users plagued with poor battery performance.
The Seattle-based caffeine pusher did not immediately return a request for comment.
I can see the need to DC AC hogs, but I know a lot of folks, including some of my favorite reporters I never see anymore, use Starbucks as a transient office.
Starbucks Gossip provides the following jolt:
If you are one of those people who uses Starbucks as their office, sits in a store for 8+ hours a day, putting all your files on a table, using a separate chair for your laptop case/ suitcase enjoying unlimited free refills with your Starbucks card, asking for cups of water and refuse to to move until you are good and ready all for the $1.85 you pay as “rent,” then perhaps your actions will answer your questions [about covering the outlets].
An AJC reporter who shall remain nameless tells me she recently lost her connection after 30 minutes at another local coffee shop, so it looks likes Starbucks is not alone in trying to prevent prolonged PC parking.
Starbucks seems to go out of their way to be friendly, so this is a perilous PR path, if true. After all, we can get coffee and electricity at work, if it comes to that.
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211 comments Add your comment
shaggy
August 5th, 2011
6:20 am
I don’t go to Starbucks, because it has ALWAYS sucked. Why would I want to waste my time sharing oxygen with arrogant and obnoxious people, slurping an overpriced tub of filth?
If I want a cup of coffee, I will get one from practically anywhere but this pretentious place. Dunkin Donuts is MUCH better coffee, and that is ALL I want, coffee. I do my work in environments suited for….well, work.
pfffft
August 5th, 2011
6:37 am
you d-bags that are complaining about losing your free office just because you bought a cup of coffee are pathetic. the table and wifi were a gift that you abused so you deserve it being taken away. you will whine, but all you complainers will be 1st in line monday morning s usual.
willydoit?
August 5th, 2011
6:51 am
It’s kind of ironic that this Seattle based company has had enough of the freeloaders taking up space and using free electricity. I thought the folks from Washington state were a bunch of liberals that like to give away money?
Oh wait a minute, they only like to give away “other peoples” money!!
David Quinn
August 5th, 2011
6:52 am
Nobody gets it here. Starbucks is cultural and a meeting place for disconnected home workers. Sure, some people use Starbucks as an office. Some use it as a convenient meeting place. Others use it because it just sucks to work at home all the time. We are not hermits, we are people that need to interact, watch, laugh, and complain. It’s what we do.
This is about power consumption and the rates that drag profits down. It’s not just the laptops, it’s the use of AC when the lobby is filled. Starbucks needs to take action. Convert the stores to DC based LED lighting that dims when the sun is bright, Add transparent solar printed with Starbucks logos to the windows and generate DC power in the store. Add Wind power via VAWT technology. Let the laptop users then connect via renewable power and add Starbucks DC power connectors for laptops. Don’t change the culture of people needing people to feel alive. We love our Starbucks even when we only stop in for a quick restroom visit.
If it’s truly about the small percentage of disconnected office workers that take up loads of tablespace why not add Starbucks office where you can subscribe or rent office space for a short period. Add a couple of conference rooms, etc. Most of the retail shops have existing empty space and the company would create additional economic value.
Please don’t submit to the excesses of a few or the rants of some that want the cup but not the crowd. Solve the problem of consumption through innovation and create some economic leadership in the process.
Just sayinn
August 5th, 2011
6:53 am
Let’s face it. We live in a society that’s becoming more uncivilized every day. More and more people care about no one but themselves and don’t give a hoot if anyone else is inconvenienced. I see it in not only the mess we have in traffic, but also in the mess people leave in public restrooms.
Kamal M.
August 5th, 2011
6:57 am
Why not making those patrons pay for electricity use, if they want to plug in their phone or computer? Is that called double dipping ( in a good way) or, for Starbucks, another way to make money? Use a kind of timer on those plugs, so that they it shuts off automatically after a certain time of use.
Covers Dixie like the Dew
August 5th, 2011
7:01 am
Maxwell House will do.
Brandon
August 5th, 2011
7:08 am
I get so annoyed when I purchase a beverage at my local Starbucks but cannot find a seat while someone is sitting there with their laptop, a box of Chinese takeout, and a cup of ice water. These people need to be kept in check… at least purchase a coffee!
getreal
August 5th, 2011
7:16 am
starbucks—a coffee shop, not an office.
Mad Russian
August 5th, 2011
7:21 am
Thank goodness I do the one thing foreign to most of these long-term PC parkers, actually read a book where you flip pages while enjoying my beverage. Many privately owned, smaller shops will have a standard set of expectations for users such as spending a specific amount of money during a time period otherwise you’re cut off. This is why Starbucks and others should have a random pass code with a time limit. I wonder how many plebes are losing their minds over this change?