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
Scott
August 5th, 2011
9:36 am
Jonny said:
August 5th, 2011
4:58 am
“I used to use Starbucks for work all the time. However, I got sick of that place. They do not have printers and it is so hard to find power!!! It is also distracting to have kids running around you while you are trying to work on your personal finances.”
Are you kidding me?? You got sick of the place, A COFFEE SHOP, because they don’t have printers? You got tired of people with kids and noise while you tried to WORK? It’s a coffee shop for crying out loud. It’s not office space for you. Why should Starbucks supply you with power or a printer for you to work. I’m glad you got sick of the place and found some place more appropriate to your needs. I get sick of trying to enjoy a cup of coffee where people like you are taking up all the tables and chairs and I have to get my coffee to go.
I think Starbucks is making the right decision on this one. I would go a step further and limit the time using power and charge a fee for it. Once your battery charge is gone…pay up. The unlimited refills would be changed too.
Power to the People
August 5th, 2011
9:38 am
Off to Starbucks to get to work, hopefully I won’t see any of you idiots there buying your coffee and giving us your stare of superiority. We don’t need you!
Ghostrider
August 5th, 2011
9:40 am
@ Power to the People
My Wife dosen’t have to work, I like having her there when I leave and when I get Home. I’t not my fault your a loser.
Barack Obama
August 5th, 2011
9:46 am
Starbucks is for metrosexual hipster posers. The losers that hang out there need to grow up, get a real job, and drink real coffee.
entitlement
August 5th, 2011
9:48 am
Let’s see……can we call these “beings” Treehuggers ??
Now I get it. I can park 20 spaces from another vehicle and when I return to my truck, someone is parked next to me. Yeah, a treehugger or SB office worker
Tony
August 5th, 2011
9:48 am
Starbucks is a good place to go number two since the turlets are all single seaters and you can lock the door. You’ll be happy that you know this one day while you’re in the store cause their coffee is so strong that you’ll visit the turlet.
addictivis
August 5th, 2011
9:49 am
Starbucks in Midtown was once a nice place to relax and enjoy a coffee while reading the paper. The patrons were mostly the same set, and decent people could feel comfortable together.
Ever since the WiFi became free, swarms of blacks have moved in and created an uncomfortable environment for Whites. These “black professionals and struggling students” hog the space and slouch all day long. They have hideous dredlocks and demeanors. Now, the nice set stays away, or order all their drinks to go.
The bathrooms stink!
Very sad how anything free always attracts the MLK Civil Rights ghetto element and makes the White community miserable. Predictable. But this is Black Ruled Atlanta, so it was just a matter of time before anything that Whites were enjoying would be taken from them.
We don’t feel sorry for miserable Whites in Atlanta. They are a minority in a black ruled city. They deserve it as bad as the blacks can give it.
atlantaphotog
August 5th, 2011
9:52 am
Not that I go somewhere where it costs me $5+ for a coffee beverage anyway, but, they ARE a business and not an office or bedroom. If I owned such a place, I would allow a set amount of internet use time per dollars spent – you spend $10, you get 1 hour (MAX) on the web with it, etc. Business-101.
JoeV
August 5th, 2011
9:53 am
Hey addictivis,
#$*& you
Michelle Obama
August 5th, 2011
9:54 am
Addictivis speaks the truth!