February 2, 2015

A Look Around the Coffee Shop

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

palermo

It’s called Palermo. It’s my favorite coffee shop in Ventura, CA. In fact, I adore this place.

Not only does Palermo have excellent coffee, it sports perfect café atmosphere. Outside the front door sit potted plants frame a random assortment of chairs and tables. Just inside you find some shabby yet comfy couches and more tables. The seating is filled with coffee-drinking humans sipping coffee, reading books, or — more commonly — using some type of mobile technology.

I plant myself in the back, behind a bookshelf. Three high tables and stools eagerly await long-term campers with laptops. Amid the high tables you find a large, round table. Plenty of wall sockets are found nearby. The tables are full of laptops with people doing work, checking email, or whatever. Ah, yes, it’s my kind of place.

Being bored or avoiding work, I decided to take a survey on who is doing what.

A clutch of teenage girls wearing gym clothes bounced in for coffee. They ordered and left, but I noticed each of them had an iPhone. (It’s the west coast, after all.) They checked the phones periodically while they waited. In fact, they interacted with the phones more than they spoke with each other.

I saw one guy reading a book. He’s being deliberately anachronistic.

Only one tablet user was present, reading something on his iPad.

The people waiting for coffee were checking their iPhones. I don’t think I saw a single Android.

About a dozen people were using laptops, including the four of us in the back. Mine is a PC laptop. One other guy had a PC as well. The rest were all Macs. The other PC user is the only person beyond me who appears to be doing work. The Mac laptop users are checking Facebook and playing some sort of game.

For a time there, I thought a rogue had joined us. She pulled out a pad of paper and began writing with a pen. That’s weird! But then ahe pulled out an iPhone. She looked at it more than she used her notebook. I felt better because of her switch.

All-in-all, I find the café locale a most pleasant away-from-work environment. I prefer this type of retreat just to get the creative juices going and break the monotony of the same office, despite whatever inconveniences may befall the experience.

2 Comments

  1. I will never ever understand how Ventura country has remained so under-developed when people are packed in like sardines just down the freeway in the San Fernando Valley.

    Comment by BradC — February 2, 2015 @ 8:20 pm

  2. More jobs down south?

    Comment by admin — February 2, 2015 @ 8:45 pm

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