It’s Mobile Office Review time!
We need a theme song.
In our never ending quest to earn ‘scene-points’ by finding the coolest hippest places to hang out and be seen with our laptops, Johnboy and I went to James Court McDonalds today to show the world just how hip we are.
I feel a little bit ill.
I even made sure to stay at the pub for a few extra drinks last night just to enhance my enjoyment of eating greasy Maccas food today, but I don’t think it helped.
We rocked up to start out work day and found a place chain our bikes up under cover, this made us happy.
Our happiness did not last.
Food:
It’s McDonalds… You already know this. Burgers, fries, and chicken nuggets. Reviewing McDonalds food seems a little pointless; you already know what’s what there. I will say this, the burgers may not be as good as those from Brodburger, but they are at least reasonably priced.
I’m sorry I couldn’t resist.
Productivity:
Mixed. It was quiet. The traffic throughout the morning was largely people who came in, ate their food, and left without making a noise. At lunch the place filled up and things got loud. There was a great big TV screen playing daytime TV which can be quite distracting, but thankfully they had the volume turned down.
The music cycled between great and dreadful, but at least it was quiet and easy to tune out.
Coffee:
Over to Johnboy:
I desperately wanted to hate the coffee from the McCafe, but while it’s not cheap it’s very soundly executed.
Watch out for the 90c they charge for a shot of syrup though, is that the best profit margin in the world of business?
Comfort:
The seats were nice and the booths were spacious and pleasant. The tables however were quite high, not enough to make it difficult to eat, just enough that our arms were at an odd angle to type and work at.
Maybe you’re really tall. You’d probably like the table height then, but us average sized people were a bit uncomfortable. Short people should bring a cushion.
Technology:
Power! Sweet magical electricity. Most of the tables had access to power points and it was blissful. More places need to be like this.
McDonalds does have free WiFi, but unfortunately it’s awful. Seriously awful. It cut in and out regularly, and when it was working it worked slowly. We quickly switched to using our mobile internet.
Oddly both of our mobile connections seemed much worse than normal. We both had a reasonable signal according to the little bars on our devices, but things kept slowing down to a crawl. I believe we’re both on the Vodaphone network so it’s hard to tell if it’s Vodaphone’s fault, or whether there’s some interference at James Court. Either way, we were much slower online than usual, which isn’t very good.
Service:
Fine. Once again I think we’ve all experienced the bored but polite teenagers of a McDonalds before.
Other People:
An amazing cross section of humanity can be found at James Court McDonalds. From Public Servants on their lunch-break, to families keeping the kids happy, to homeless guys just wanting to be off the street. Every single person who walks in the door is different and magnificent.
People watchers rejoice. There was one guy who gave Johnboy the evil eye for like an hour. It was great.
Conclusion:
No, just no. Not a great place to work, nor just be in general.
Being able to plug in your laptop at a table is a wonderful thing, but sadly that’s all that is really going for James Court’s McDonalds. The WiFi was terrible, the place smelt like a dirty frier, and after having breakfast and lunch at McDonalds today I feel kinda like oil is dripping from my fingers onto this keyboard.
Ewww.
Alrighty, where to next gang?