Panera wifi outage on Thursday changed my whole workflow

So I'm at the Panera on Broadway in Nashville last Thursday during a slow stretch, hoping to snag some cheap coffee and work on a small poster project. The wifi goes down for like 45 minutes right when I'm about to upload a final file. That forced me to finally set up a mobile hotspot on my phone, and now I realize I can work from almost anywhere without relying on spotty cafe wifi. Anyone else have a random event push them into a better setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

wesley63917d ago

You realized you can work from almost anywhere"... did that end up saving you money or costing more for data?

andrew_baker917d agoMost Upvoted

Figured this out the hard way myself. The data costs sneaked up on me, and that study adam414 mentioned lines up with my experience too. It's one of those things where you think you're saving by cutting the commute, but little expenses just pile up from a different direction. Makes you wonder if we're all just trading one set of costs for another without really getting ahead in the long run.

adam41417d ago

Yeah I actually read somewhere that remote workers end up spending more on average when they factor in data overage charges and upgrading home internet. A study from last year said the hidden costs can add up to like $50 to $100 a month if you're not careful with your plan. Plus you gotta think about all those coffee shop purchases just to get their wifi password. I know people who switched to unlimited data plans and still ended up paying more than they were before. The savings from not commuting kind of get eaten up by all the little tech expenses here and there.