Hot take: "quiet" coffee shops are a myth and I proved it at Blue Bottle in Austin

I was at the downtown Blue Bottle on 6th street trying to debug a Node.js deployment, and this guy next to me took a Zoom call on speakerphone. Like full volume, no headphones. I asked him to use headphones, he shrugged and said "it's a coffee shop." So I packed up and walked to Houndstooth on South Congress, and the wifi died on me twice in 30 minutes. Has anyone else just given up on finding a truly quiet spot and started booking library rooms instead?

2 comments

2 Comments

miles541h ago

The whole "coffee shop as office" thing has gotten out of hand (and I say this as someone who definitely works from coffee shops). It's like people forgot that actual conversations used to happen in these places, and now every spot is just a coworking space with worse wifi and louder espresso machines. Library study rooms are honestly the move now, especially if your local branch has those private pods where you can actually think. Kind of sad that we've normalized doing Zoom calls in public spaces like it's totally fine to blast your conversation at everyone within earshot.

jake_walker54m ago

Isn't it wild how we traded genuine conversation for conference calls in crowded spaces? I feel you on that one, libraries are the real hidden gem for getting stuff done.