为什么咖啡馆变成了另一家办公室？

Kyle Glanville should have been thrilled. All 70 of the outdoor seats at Go Get Em Tiger were taken, only three days after he and his partner opened the cafe in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles.

凯尔·格兰维尔本该非常欣喜若狂。他与合伙人一起在洛杉矶洛斯费利兹一带开的咖啡馆Go Get Em Tiger开业的第三天，70个露天座位全都被预定了。

He was not. “Everybody was at a laptop wearing headphones,” Glanville said. He strode inside, unplugged the device that provided free Wi-Fi and tossed it into a bin in his office.

但他没有。“每个人都戴着耳机坐在电脑前，”格兰维尔说。他大步走了进去，拔掉了提供免费Wi-Fi的设备电源，把它扔进了自己办公室的垃圾桶里。

He wanted a courtyard where people talked to one another, not a silent office for remote workers. And while anyone with a cellphone hot spot could connect without his help, he had made himself clear. On a recent weekday morning, almost a year and a half later, the courtyard was still full of people, but this time they were talking to one another. Only one was at his laptop.

他想要的是一个人们能在里面相互交谈的庭院，而不是给远程工作者们的一间无声的办公室。虽然任何一个有手机热点的人都不用他帮忙就能连接上网，他还是摆明了自己的立场。最近，在将近一年半以后的一个工作日早晨，院子里依然坐满了人，但这一次，他们在相互交谈。只有一个人在用电脑。

Remote workers have staked out coffee shops for years, but small-business owners say their ranks are rising. In 2016, 43 percent of U.S. employees spent some time working remotely, according to a Gallup survey; the number who telecommute at least half the time has grown by 115 percent since 2005, said a report last year from FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics.

远程工作者们已经占领咖啡店多年，但小本经营的商家表示他们的级别在提高。根据盖洛普(Gallup)的一个调查显示，2016年，美国43%的员工有部分时间在远程工作；FlexJobs和全球职场分析公司(Global Workplace Analytics)去年的一则报道称，自2005年以来，至少过半的时间都在远程工作的人数已经有了115%的增长。

Add in the self-employed, and the crowd gets even bigger. And while some still embrace the home-and-pajama model, a large contingent hits the corner cafe.

加上自雇人士，群体就更大了。尽管有些人还是喜欢居家睡衣的办公模式，但一支大部队已经向街角的咖啡馆袭来。

Starbucks may not feel the pinch, with its multibillion-dollar revenues and legions of grab-and-go customers, but for owners of smaller businesses, the math is grim.

星巴克(Starbucks)可能没有痛感，它有着数十亿美元收入和大批买了就走的顾客，但对于小商家来说，这笔账是很头疼的。

“Three hours for $5 worth of coffee is not a model that works,” said David Wynn, co-owner of Triniti, a tiny cafe that opened two months ago east of Glanville’s place, on Sunset Boulevard in the Echo Park neighborhood.

“买杯5美元的咖啡坐3个小时，这个模式是行不通的，”小咖啡店Triniti的合伙人戴维·威恩(David Wynn)说，他的店两个月前开在回声公园一带的日落大道上开张，在格兰维尔的店东边。

Owners face a choice: Get tough and encourage workers to move, or embrace them and hope that a combination of guilt and loyalty will inspire them to spend more or leave sooner.

经营者们面临着一个选择：强硬一点，敦促工作者们离开，或是接受他们，指望着愧疚感和忠诚度的结合能让他们想花更多的钱或更早离开。

It’s hard to know which is the right answer. “There’s no social order here to tell us how to behave,” said Glanville, as if he were contemplating a newly formed nation, which in a way he is. He took a no-tolerance stance on Wi-Fi because a single ground rule seemed more hospitable than a litany of restrictions.

很难说哪个才是正确答案。“没有什么社会秩序来告诉我们该怎么做，”格兰维尔说，仿佛他是在设想一个刚刚成立的国家，在某种程度上的确如此。他选择了对Wi-Fi不加容忍的立场，因为单一的基本原则看似比一连串的限制规矩更令人舒服。

Rich Nieto thought he was being tough enough when he limited workers to a dedicated laptop room at his 25-seat Sweetleaf cafe in Long Island City in the Queens borough of New York City. But when all eight laptop seats were taken one afternoon, a customer simply retired to another room, tore away the wallpaper to expose a purposely covered electrical outlet, and plugged in.

里奇·涅托(Rich Nieto)以为，在自己的纽约皇后区长岛市Sweetleaf咖啡馆内，把25个座席的一部分专门划给工作人士，就已足够强硬。但一天下午，当8个电脑专座都被占满了的时候，一位顾客直接回到了另一个房间，撕下了墙纸，露出一个有意盖住的电源插座，然后接上了插头。

“You can’t win that battle,” said Nieto, who had already learned his lesson the hard way. “The first time I saw someone with a laptop, I said, ‘Sorry, no laptops.’ Right after that, I got a one-star review on Yelp.”

“你赢不了的，”涅托说，他已经尝到了这么做的苦头。“第一次看到有人用电脑时，我就说，‘对不起，不能用电脑’。紧接着我就在Yelp被评了一星。”

Even companies committed to accommodating remote workers look for ways to improve the relationship.

即使是一心为远程工作者提供方便的公司也在想办法改进关系。

At Triniti, Wynn offers free Wi-Fi, but after two hours a customer must have “a face-to-face interaction” with an employee, he says, to get a new password. He relies on that interaction and the aromas from the kitchen to transform coffee drinkers into lunch customers, and has been gratified as the first wave of workers has started to order midday meals.

Triniti咖啡馆的老板威恩提供免费WiFi，但他表示，每隔两个小时，顾客必须与店员进行“一次面对面的交流”，以获得新密码。他依赖于这种互动以及厨房的香味，将来喝咖啡的顾客转变为午餐顾客，当第一批来喝咖啡的顾客开始点午餐时，他深感欣慰。

Jason Neroni, the chef and a partner in the Rose Cafe in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, said he was happy to run what he called “a commissary” for the nearby offices of Google, BuzzFeed and Snapchat — this part of the neighborhood is known as Silicon Beach — and for self-employed people.

洛杉矶威尼斯社区玫瑰咖啡馆(Rose Cafe)的厨师兼合伙人杰森·内罗尼(Jason Neroni)表示，他很高兴为附近的谷歌、BuzzFeed和Snapchat等公司的员工以及自雇人士提供了一个他所说的“员工餐厅”。这一带有硅滩(Silicon Beach)之称。

He sees them as the nascent regulars of tomorrow. And with 300 seats, he can afford to invest 85 to 90 cafe and patio seats in the future and still maintain a no-laptop policy in the main dining room.

他将他们视为未来的新常客。他的咖啡馆有300个座位，因此可以拿出85到90个咖啡厅和露台座位供来这里办公的顾客使用，同时依然在主餐厅实行禁用笔记本电脑的政策。

He employs subtle means to influence the behavior of working customers. Logging in for two hours of free Wi-Fi requires the user’s email address, which goes onto the Rose’s mailing list. And while people can log right back in, the expiration reminds them that it might be time to order another round.

他采用微妙的手段来影响办公顾客的行为。顾客必须提供邮箱地址才能免费登录使用两个小时的Wi-Fi，邮箱地址将被纳入玫瑰咖啡馆的邮件列表。虽然到时断开后，顾客可以立即重新登录，但这个操作提醒他们，也许该再点些什么了。

Servers circulate to ask if they can get something else for a customer tied to his electronic devices. And Wi-Fi service ends at 5:30 p.m., to signal that the workday has ended and dinner service is about to begin.

服务员会来回走动询问那些使用电子设备的顾客是否还需要点些什么。Wi-Fi服务在下午5点半停止，提醒顾客工作时间结束了，晚餐服务要开始了。

Neroni tried extending the Wi-Fi until 7 one night, “as an experiment,” he said. “People looked up and figured we forgot to turn it off. And it was ‘Oh, boy,’ and a line of people carrying their open laptops into the dining room so they could keep working.” He reminded the disappointed throng of the dining-room no-laptop policy and resumed the 5:30 cutoff.

内罗尼说，有一天傍晚，他想“做个试验”，试着将Wi-Fi服务延长至晚上7点。“人们抬起头看了看，猜想是我们忘了关Wi-Fi。场面很无奈，一群人拿着打开的笔记本电脑走进餐厅继续工作。”他向失望的人群重申了餐厅禁用电脑的规定，从此继续5点半关Wi-Fi的做法。

Like most cafes, the Rose doesn’t provide electrical outlets; a dwindling battery should be a sign that it’s time to go.

和大多数咖啡馆一样，玫瑰不提供电源插座。电量越来越少表示该走了。

Some remote workers have gotten the message, and try to do their part. Jocelyn Johnson, who founded VideoInk, a digital trade publication about online video, relies on remote work sites including the Rose. She has defined a code of conduct to prove herself a good citizen.

一些远程办公人员明白这个意思，并尽力做好自己的本分。创办了有关在线视频的数字行业刊物VideoInk的乔斯林·约翰逊(Jocelyn Johnson)依赖包括玫瑰在内的远程办公场所。她制定了一套行为准则，以此证明自己是一个好市民。

Her self-imposed rules include working in one cafe or restaurant no more than three mornings a week, for no more than three hours at a stretch. She always orders a coffee and pastry, and frequently a lunch to go. Then she packs up and heads to another spot on her preferred list.

她给自己制定的规则包括一周不在同一家咖啡馆或餐厅工作超过三个上午，每次不超过三个小时。她总是点一份咖啡和糕点，经常还会再吃个午饭。然后，她会收拾东西，前往优先名单上的另一个地方。

The only casualty of the plan is her social life, which she had hoped might include the Rose as well: She tried a weekend brunch there, only to realize that it felt too much like the office.

这个计划唯一的受害者是她的社交生活。她原本希望自己的社交生活也包括玫瑰：一个周末她试着在那里吃了一顿早午餐，不料却发现感觉太像办公室了。

“I couldn’t enjoy myself,” she said. “I kept feeling that I ought to be working.”

“我没法好好享受，”她说。“总觉得自己应该在工作。