Gordon Laing

I’ve always loved the idea of mobility – untethering yourself from the desktop and heading out with the possibility of working anywhere you fancy.

Forget about unfolding a laptop in the safety of a hotel room though. I’m talking about keeping it real and snatching crafty half hours here and there on trains and planes, or perhaps at a coffee shop while you wait for friends or colleagues – that’s the mobile dream.

Annoyingly, whenever I attempt this kind of liberation, it never works out. However honourable my intentions, I rarely if ever get any real work done when I’m out of the office.

But the adverts make it look so easy. Am I really the only one who fails in the pursuit of this mobile nirvana?

Take coffee shops with their increasingly common wireless hotspots. They sound ideal for polishing a presentation, but it’s only when you start trying to concentrate that you realise just how loud and distracting these places can get.

Plus, maybe it’s just me, but at half the wireless hotspots I visit, I spend most of my time and battery life just trying to get connected.

How about a train then? Find a peaceful carriage and prepare for some quality time with your laptop.

Only watch out, because if you sit on the sunny side, you’ll strain to see anything on your screen. And those tables seem designed to make using a laptop as uncomfortable as possible.

So onto a plane, with the promise of several uninterrupted hours of work. But foiled again by the constant distractions: there are only a few brief windows of opportunity between announcements and delivery of drinks and food.

When you do get a longer gap, the person in front of you reclines their seat, which folds your laptop shut.

Maybe I’ve just been unlucky, but this stream of failures has resulted in me rarely if ever carrying a laptop on a trip – for work purposes anyway. I think the people you see using their laptops for watching DVDs have the right idea.

But sometimes work needs to be done when you’re away from the office, and I head for the nearest Internet café.

Before committed laptop users reel in horror, think about the benefits. In a decent Internet café you’ll get to use a mains-powered system which will almost certainly be quicker than a battery-operated laptop.

You’ll also enjoy a decent-sized screen, full-size keyboard and mouse, and of course a fast connection without any need for configuration. Perhaps best of all, you’ll also be able to travel light without lugging your own machine around, or worrying about having it (and company secrets) nicked.

Yep, I reckon Internet cafés offer a number of truly compelling benefits for the modern worker away from the office, and appropriately enough, I’m writing this very column from one.

Trouble is, my plan of doing proper work in such environments has yet to catch on with my fellow café visitors.

Most are still students or backpackers looking for a convenient way to stay in touch with friends and family. Nothing wrong with that, except that in the past year or so, the means by which they do so has changed dramatically.

Not so long ago, anything other than a Hotmail inbox was considered an unusual sight on the screens of an Internet café. Then as instant messaging became increasingly popular, you’d see a few people conversing in real time.

Today it’s all changed. The rise of Voice over IP (VoIP) services such as Skype have seen many travellers abandon keyboards for a microphone and headset. And why not?

Trouble is, many modern Internet cafés have become louder than a pub on a Friday night. It’s like being in a room packed with inconsiderate mobile phone users, except with both ears normally encased by headphones, their conversations are shouted louder than ever.

I know – I’ve already walked out of two cafés in frustration today.

VoIP may be a killer application for travellers in Internet cafés, but sadly it’s rendered many of them unusable for anyone wanting to do any work.

To be fair, the cafés never pretended to be peaceful havens for mobile workers, but it now seems the only place you can work away from the office really is in your hotel room.

It’s a reluctant defeat for anyone pursuing the mobile dream, but in the absence of a better solution, it’s the only practical way of getting the job done.

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!