My office is not a house or a street

The customer is always right

The free office in the cafe is very convenient – there is Wi-Fi, you can study documents without interference, call clients, conduct negotiations online or invite your partner to a meeting in person.

“The main thing is to meet the deadline, and where I work – on the roof or on the seashore, my management is not at all interested,” said Natalya Maltseva, whom we met in a popular cafe on Kamergersky Lane. She, by the way, came to the capital from Sochi, but not on a business trip, but for the weekend to walk around the city. But work caught up with her here too.

– I am a designer, I make websites for companies. I used to work in an advertising agency, but left when I realized that I could earn money outside the office. I get good money, but I work seven days a week, and now the customer asks me to fix something, so I ran into a cafe.

Natalya ordered tea for herself, and 20 minutes later she left, leaving the waiter a couple of hundred tips.

– Young people often come to us with laptops, there are even regular clients who work with us for three to four hours two or three times a week. We treat this with understanding. Freelancers need a change of scenery, and providing them with a free table is not a problem. They come, as a rule, on weekdays, ask for a place near the outlet and do not bother anyone. In the evening, after 17.00, when people start coming to us after work, we turn on the music louder, it becomes noisy, and the remote workers themselves, without reminders, immediately leave,” said Alexandra Prots, deputy general director of the Bro&N cafe-pizzeria.

The waiters here take for granted even the simplest order, tea and dessert for 300 rubles. Moreover, if the tables with sockets are occupied, the guest is offered to borrow a power bank (portable battery) and sit down to work at any free table.

If a person takes a table with a minimum check, naturally, the restaurant not only earns nothing, but also suffers losses

Entry with a laptop is prohibited

But there are other establishments in the city where they don’t particularly favor guests who, having taken a cup of Americano, then sit for half a day, minding their own business, working on a laptop using free Wi-Fi. The waiters, of course, do not immediately drive them away, but negotiate on the shore. “We immediately set a condition for the arriving guest: to stay at the table for one and a half to two hours, with a deposit the time can be increased by 30-60 minutes,” said Konstantin Popov, manager of the Sakhalin restaurant, one of the most successful and popular in the city.

But this approach may not work, says Moscow restaurant market ombudsman Sergei Mironov: “After the agreed time, the guest can say that he changed his mind and decided to stay, but the waiters and security guards have no right to kick him out. The client is always right. There is no law according to which he “You can refuse. Each customer can occupy a table as long as he or she wants during the establishment’s opening hours, regardless of how much he or she has ordered.”

Meanwhile, if a person takes a table with a minimum check, naturally, the restaurant not only earns nothing, but also suffers losses. After all, this table could easily accommodate a friendly company with alcohol, snacks and hot food. In this case, according to Mironov, there is only one way out – bad Internet, without which the work of remote workers is blocked.

“In my opinion, it is impossible to accuse a restaurant of greed in such cases. For an establishment, business is most important; it must think about profit. Who can blame, for example, a taxi driver who does not take a passenger from Moscow to St. Petersburg for the price of a trip from one block of Bibirev to another? Fortunately, many guests do not abuse the politeness of the waiters and leave without unnecessary reminders,” added Mironov.

Where you are always welcome

But there are also cafes in the capital that welcome people working at their tables at any time of the day. One of these establishments is located at Krivokolenny Lane, 9, building 3. There are even special tables with sockets for this purpose and another large common table, at which you can develop an idea with colleagues or friends or sum up the results of negotiations, outline plans for the future. To ensure that telephone conversations of remote workers do not disturb other visitors, closed booths are equipped. Is work not going well? You can switch off for a while, read, for example, a book – volumes are on the shelves in the cafe, or listen to music on headphones, look at the paintings of young artists, which are regularly updated, and, of course, have a snack. “The cafe is completely conducive to work, but we are not visited by typical remote workers who do not order anything. Most often, our guests with laptops come to the cafe as if they were going to work, they have breakfast with us, then go about their business, have a full lunch at noon, and meet in the evening their friends and stay with them for dinner,” says Ella Voronina, manager of the cafe.

Another such cafe is hidden between Myasnitskaya and Academician Sakharov Avenue. The inside is light, beautiful and spacious. All tables are located at a great distance from each other, and there are also special places for working on the podium: these are tables with one comfortable chair and partitions between each other – like in open space. They stand opposite the wall, there is an outlet under the table. “Eight people can work here at the same time. As a rule, guests with laptops order only coffee or water, but we don’t complain, because thanks to them, others see that the cafe is not empty and also come in. Meanwhile, the management of the coffee shop does not have its own office and is wonderful understands those who work remotely. It’s unbearable to sit at home all day, we ourselves often look for a calm and cozy place to work, so there’s no point in always fighting with them, we just need to create certain spaces so that people can work and relax comfortably. “, shared Victoria Kurta, director of operations at Here N Now.

There are also anti-cafes in the city where you only pay for the time spent in the establishment. Prices start from 400 rubles per day. Everything else – coffee, cookies, seats at tables, Wi-Fi – is free. It can be noisy to work there though. Most often, large groups come to such cafes to play board games or watch movies, and not to do business.

So far, nothing better has been invented in Moscow than coworking spaces for remote workers. For example, on Pravdy Street, 24, building 2, for 900 rubles you can sit with a computer all day and drink tea or coffee for free. Near the Paveletskaya metro station, an hour costs 500 rubles, where for this money, in addition to drinks, they also serve snacks (sandwiches, cookies, etc.).

Direct speech

Andrey Tarasov, head of the Moscow Employment Service and the Center for Professions of the Future:

Remote work has its advantages: saving time and money on travel to and from the office, schedule flexibility and the ability to work from anywhere in the world. However, disadvantages also exist: lack of live communication with colleagues, blurring of boundaries between work and personal life, decreased productivity, decreased communication efficiency, and difficulty interacting with the team. Of course, this format depends on many factors, including the corporate culture of the company, individual preferences and agreements between the applicant and the employer.

Help “RG”

The share of vacancies with a remote format in the total aggregated database of the “Professions of the Future” center is almost 7%. One of the most popular industries for remote work remains the IT sector. In particular, programmers (average salary level is 168,333 rubles), testers (137,000 rubles), and web designers can work remotely. The second most popular area is wholesale and retail trade. For example, call center operators (48,850 rubles) and sales managers (78,900 rubles) can work remotely. Among the popular industries for remote workers is the service sector, where lawyers (80,550 rubles), accountants (66,000 rubles), and customer service specialists (65,700 rubles) can work remotely.