After working on programming all morning, I’ve upped sticks and moved to a nearby cafe for the afternoon. Rather than amuse myself in the junk room at home, I can now try to ignore everybody around me while pretending to get on with some work. I’m telling myself this is good for my mental health.
I’m not so sure the change of scenery actually “works” - sometimes with software development you need to really focus - and that’s nearly impossible when you’re surrounded by other people’s conversations. Perhaps it’s just me - finding it hard not to start listening.
When I walked in the door my daughter passed by behind the counter and waved. She works here in the kitchen - prepping, cooking, and washing up. Slowly working her way up the ladder. Sometimes she gets a bit down about being given menial jobs, but I impress upon her that everybody starts at the bottom, and there is value to it. One day somebody else will be complaining about starting at the bottom, and she will look back with a smile.
There’s a guy sitting to my left with a small dog - he appears to be the boyfriend of one of the girls running tables in the cafe. The dog is itching to go find out what she’s doing in the kitchen - all of his senses are trained towards her.
One huge benefit of the cafe? Free coffee re-fills. They always have a jug of hot coffee on a warming plate in the middle of the cafe that you can help yourself to. This of course means I will leave with a hugely elevated caffeine level - enough to cause most people all sorts of problems. Thankfully several decades of caffeine abuse in the pursuit of writing software has made me more-or-less immune to it’s effects.
It’s not unusual for me to drink coffee before bed, and then fall fast asleep within minutes of laying down.
The dog has just left. It didn’t want to go - it looked out for the girl while being reluctantly dragged backwards through the door. Dogs live so much “in the moment” - their heart on their sleeve. We only have cats at home - I don’t think they really care if you’re alive or dead, as long as food arrives in their bowl a couple of times a day. I’m pretty sure if the food didn’t arrive they would start asking next-door in pretty short order.
Anyway. I better down this coffee and head back towards home. More washing to do. More clothes to hang on the line. More rubbish to pick up after everybody else. Oh, and more work to do.