Coffee shops part 2...

I work in coffee shops. No not pouring coffee, steaming milk, calling out, "No foam, extra hot, double shot, non fat latte for George". No, I sit at my computer thinking or writing or visualizing some aspect of project management or software or both.

I have often wondered what folks do, sitting at their computers, in coffee shops. At "my" local coffee shop I have a table. They don't reserve it for me but more often than not it is there for me. I can sit and work amidst the buzz of talk and the grind of ice in blenders and the occasional - too loud - siren of some machine making some extra hot drink. The music, just the right volume, tempers the other sounds and conversations and helps them blend into the background.

Back to working at the coffee shop... Some of the people working are serious. Probably, on chapter 43 of that great American novel. Others are curious and engage the old guys in conversation providing a new ear to old stories. I will have to capture some of those stories, give a new venue to them. I have thought of putting some books I have worked on and in which my name is referenced on the shelves of the shop but that would look a little too egocentric. But when I do write that great American novel I will get it on the shelves.

One of my coffee shop friends, J for now, is working on a screenplay. He is intense but we always have a nice conversation whenever I break his concentration. Occasionally we talk about the latest bite he has gotten, seldom about the frustrations of the quest for the right connection. The frustrations are understood. Usually, I ask if he has had any good fishing and he asks me about any more Albanian travels. Someday his screenplay will be picked up and I will buy him a cup of coffee. And someday I will go back to Albania and he will ask to see the pictures.

The other day I heard a young woman behind me discussing her work with Third Culture Kids. That is a rather esoteric topic that I knew a little about. Not too esoteric a topic if you are like this young woman - a missionary kid who is raised in country A by parents from countries B and C going to college in country D trying to figure out who they are and why no one else gets it. But to sit in a coffee shop in my town to hear the reference was fairly random so I engaged in a brief conversation. She had completed a short documentary on the topic. As a budding photo journalist I noticed that she took the time to stop and engage the old guys in a conversation, sharing her recent success and hearing their story. In this case, I was also probably one of the old guys she chatted with that she might recount to a friend later in the day. Or perhaps there are so many of these random, disconnected conversations today that they just filter into the pool of coffee shop images and encounters.

So for now the time-clock indicates that I must be off to the office, where the coffee is fresh and the sounds of the grinders will provide that bit of inspiration needed.

JMP