photo credit: mccheek

Whether you’re a freelancer or a company lifer, you’ll always have the chance to get work done offsite. In fact, working somewhere other than your cube, office, or home can add a lot to your understanding of work/life balance. New scenery and new people can have you coming up with new ideas pretty quickly.

Of course, many of us head to the patron saint of offsite working, St. Arbucks. It was her CEO that happily said,

We’re in the business of human connection and humanity, creating communities in a third place between home and work.

But now, these third places are cracking down on those of us who like to sit and type our day away, logging billable hours or scheduling meetings. Some, as the Wall Street Journal reports, are banning laptops during lunch hours. Other coffee shops are taking away free Wi-Fi altogether. What’s a geek to do?

Of course, business is business. Shop owners need to make money, and someone who needs lunch and a hot drink is bringing in more revenue than you are (per hour, at least).

So tell us: If your third place or workplace did away with free Wi-Fi or banned laptops, what would you do? Go crazy? Protest? Find another location?