Comments on: Don’t plug in at the Waterstone’s Costa Coffee in Brighton: the most geek-unfriendly cafe in Brighton?

By: Kevinjohn

Kevinjohn — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:52:17 +0000

I’ll not be popular here with this, but I do believe you might be in the wrong here Aral.

You’ve suggested that Costa should have put up a sign saying that you’ve not to use their electricity because you assumed that you could. Thats an assumption on your part mate, for how you see coffee shops these days (coffee+mac+wifi+power).

If you went into Asda or Tesco to buy coffee would you do the same?

Also, and maybe this is the clincher, when i head into a shop with my notebook and do a bit of work, i generally do ask if its ok if i use a plug. 99/100 people are totally grand with it, and appreciate the manners.

Not every coffee shop has changed its business model to cater for us geeks, you’ve projected a stereotype on to them; and then been unhappy with it wasn’t true. Respectfully dude, thats kinda your fault.

I also think it’s kind of… unfair shall we say to take digs at the person working in Costa. You’re a skilled, intelligent man who’s doing well for himself in the field that he loves. Taking pot shots at people slogging througha 9-5 in a coffee shop, well thats is just weak man. The poor woman’s just doing her job.

We all get annoyed by things in life, but if this is one of your biggest worries that you have to vent on your blog about it, then Aral, you’ve no idea how good you have life. And I’m truly pleased for you in that respect but… suck it up like a man, stop being a stereotype yourself dude, and go to another coffee shop.

By: Spatty M

Spatty M — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:26:53 +0000

You’re a cunt.

By: Rigard Kruger

Rigard Kruger — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:17:17 +0000

Hilarious! I had a very similar experience a while back. I had some lunch at a Bistro in Stellenbosch in South Africa, and afterwards plugged in my laptop to do some work. When the bill came, there was an additional item on my bill for “Corkage”. Obviously quite strange, I queried this and was told it was for the electricity. Quite flabbergasted, as this happens nowhere, I asked to see the manager, who must be one of the world’s worst human beings and proceeded to scream and shout at me when I made a point of the fact that I had just spent a whole bunch of money there and didn’t really think it fair to pay for the little bit of electricity, particularly considering this is completely out of the norm and as you say, there were no signs.

Anyway, suffice it to say that I have never been back, and also interestingly, the place closed a few months later – perhaps due to some dodgy management ;)

By: Shogododo

Shogododo — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:33:01 +0000

Slightly off subject but here in Colchester there is an affiliation between Costa and Odeon Cinema. When you obtain a till receipt for your coffee it is headed in the Odeon brand. Perhaps Costa is some sort of franchising package when “in-store” ? Still, as I too am a Coffee Office dude (http://bit.ly/dszGlh) I sympathise. Welcome to the DevBucks gang.

Shogo

By: Mark D

Mark D — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:00:53 +0000

This place sounds medieval. No WiFi and complaining about electricity usage. Maybe it’s their way of saying: we don’t want fancy developers in our coffee hut.

I wonder if the money they saved on electricity is worth the loss of clients. I really hope it does.

By: fritz

fritz — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:54:21 +0000

Thank god you got a blog wher you can vent, eh :-P

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:58:49 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12JTDp6xm18&feature=youtube_gdata

By: John F.

John F. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:12:06 +0000

I dug around and answered my own question about the site design =) Nice customization of it. Tons of plugins too.

I just stumbled on your blog about 2 weeks ago. Wish I could tell you how I found it, it would be good for marketing purposes. Anyway, I love it and look forward to reading more. Renaissance geekism at its best.

By: John F.

John F. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:04:59 +0000

What horrendous customer service. The amount they make on your coffee far surpasses the cost incurred from you having your notebook plugged in, _especially_ one of Apple’s. The new MacBook Pros are some of the greenest notebooks on the planet.

You would think that they would want more Apple notebooks in their cafe so that it would appear a trendy place to sit and have a coffee. Craziness. Starbucks is indeed evil, I’m glad you found another place to code in peace.

p.s. Did you design the layout for your blog? So clean.

By: Tom Morris

Tom Morris — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:51:58 +0000

Stop stealing our electricity, indeed.

Next they’ll be complaining because you are stealing their air having bought an expensive coffee from them.

I agree about the programming books too. Borders actually had some good programming books, but Waterstones in Brighton is a joke. In fact the only Waterstones I know that has a decent selection of programming books is the one on Gower Street in London, but that’s because it’s their “academic” branch.

This is why I tend to use libraries when I need to work from somewhere else.