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by Kate Lewis for fluxo
Let me set the scene for you: It’s a brittle, baltic day in New York City. Apparently record-breakingly so. On this day I am working from home, and I wake up in a very cold room. This is somewhat normal for this time of year, but still, the level of chill was surprising. What was also surprising was the frost that had accumulated on the inside of my window.
After gaslighting myself and my roommate into thinking that this was normal, that it’s just colder this winter than usual (I mean, this is true to a certain extent—the south is getting snow right now), we got an email from our building management saying that there was a boiler emergency and we shouldn’t expect the heat back for a while.
So. What does one do when they can see their breath in their bedroom, there’s frost on the inside of the windows, and they are supposed to work from home? Coffee shop time!
Well, one can try. Since the coffee shops closest to me banned laptops, I headed over to one near my old apartment, about 15 minutes away, that had been my go-to WFH spot when I lived over there.
As I paid for my coffee, I noticed a sign by the register that announced a new one hour laptop limit. One hour was, obviously, not enough time for a day of work but I had already purchased my coffee, so I sat to sip and use my allotted hour for some work. At least their wifi was extremely fast.
I did some quick math—I knew of another coffee shop a few blocks away with a 2 hour limit on laptop usage. And then if I came back to this one after, would that mean my laptop hour would restart if I bought something else? Could I bounce back and forth between these two coffee shops until I got in a full day of work?
When we can’t be in our apartments anymore, due to anything from distracting roommates, lack of space, or extreme cold, where do remote workers go? Coffee shops are no longer a reliable option—even if there’s no laptop limit, it’s a struggle to snag a table because of so many other people with the same idea.
I don’t blame coffee shops for implementing the laptop rules. They have a business to run and us remote workers take up tables for long periods of time. But if we need to leave our apartments, where else are we supposed to go?
This is why fluxo was born. It takes away the hesitancy, the unknowing, the uncertainty of working from home from outside of your apartment.
On the app, you can search for local places in your NYC neighborhood that are open to remote workers during the day and book a spot for yourself (a fluxo PASS, if you will). And all fluxo locations have the basic WFH essentials—wifi, outlets, coffee, filtered water, good atmosphere—so there're no unwelcome surprises that would make your work day harder.
fluxo launches next month… but until then, stay warm.
