Comments on: Unemployed and exiled from the local cafe

By: anita

anita — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:00:08 +0000

Just getting acquainted with this blog (having just got laid off 3 weeks ago); nice writting Norm! Alas, the same thing happened to me yest. I went to 360Primo in Austin, which I used to love for their free wifi and chai lattes – to my dismay, they had put plastic covers over all the outlets – my hp battery probably lasts 30 mins, that’s about how long it takes to fire up IE…

By: Laptop friendly cafes, or not » Free Sydney Wireless – SydneyFreeNet

Laptop friendly cafes, or not » Free Sydney Wireless – SydneyFreeNet — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:28:42 +0000

[...] Norm Elrod experienced first hand, blogging on Jobless and Less: …but waiting for me at my home office away from home office was quite a shock – little [...]

By: Opening a store... the solution to my unemployment woes | Jobless and Less

Opening a store... the solution to my unemployment woes | Jobless and Less — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:21:29 +0000

[...] make a mean cup. But there was no place to meet friends, hang out, read a book, check email or get exiled from. The idea of opening a little cafe has a certain romantic quality. It also has a major downside, as [...]

By: Norm

Norm — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:49:59 +0000

I’m sorry to hear that, Ron. But your story does make me feel fortunate for living in the big city. At least you can see the stars at night… I’m tired, and that’s the best I can come up with. Good luck.

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:18:09 +0000

Hey Norm – a bright spot in your day here. You could (like me) be pushing hard on 64, recently laid off, and living in a rural town of 25,000 that’s 100 miles from the nearest city. Panhandling is discouraged here – even as a 401K supplement. There’s already a stack of resumes on Wal-Mart’s greeter position table.
Just thought I’d make your day!

By: Unemployment is the birthday present I've always dreamed about | Jobless and Less

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 04:06:40 +0000

[...] wifey, it would be very good. From there I wandered back home, stopping off for coffee at the cafe that banished me with locks on its electrical outlets. I cursed them while handing over my [...]

By: Norm

Norm — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:56:45 +0000

There’s a library a few blocks away, but it’s always really crowded. And I’d have the same plugging in problem. And I’ve never had much luck working from there anyway.

By: Courtney

Courtney — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Why not choose to do offline things when at the cafe? It’s not a mandatory rule that you have to use your computer, although I understand it was convenient habit. You’re not exiled from the cafe; you just can’t plug in. Print things out, use it to read or research. It might even be good to clear your head from the interwebs for a bit.

Barring that, is there no library in Jackson Heights?

By: Norm

Norm — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:16:06 +0000

Gentrification does have the result of clearing out the less well off. But it also makes some less well off people a fair bit of money. The people who move into a neighborhood and spend more money on a home may very well be buying that home from a long-time resident who paid very little for it.

By: Tom Lowenhaupt

Tom Lowenhaupt — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:40:45 +0000

I go to Cafe 77 and wish it was more of an Internet Cafe. Too small for that I guess.

But your comment that “Jackson Heights is gentrifying” and the Cafe 77 complaint fired off a few neurons, not enough to arrive at a conclusion, but perhaps worth mentioning.

I’m reading New York for Sale by Tom Angotti (MIT Press) and he posits that gentrification is a somewhat vicious process for clearing out the less well off. Somewhat like plugging the electric sockets to those with old batteries. (Mine lasts for 22 minutes.)

Best,

Tom