If you think cafes are safe environments, you’re right. They’re amazing safe spaces in which you can feed off the buzz of energy that’s around you, take inspiration from all the other customers, and immerse yourself in creative work, and beautiful collaborative dialogue.
You can get very comfortable in such an environment, and when you’re so immersed in your work, without that awareness of what’s going on around you, thieves have a wonderful opportunity to operate.
This afternoon, I was sitting at Starbucks in Angel with a friend for a hot drink. As we were about to leave, he went to get his laptop bag and couldn’t find it. In it’s place was a scruffy empty black satchel, and on the table next to it a half opened sandwich.
The thief had stolen a sandwich (as none of the staff recognised that sandwich being paid for), sat at a potential hotspot where he / she wouldn’t be recognised, swiftly swapped bags (like you see in the films when they swap briefcases) and had taken the opportunity to run off with my friend’s bag, which contained his laptop and some important documents.
I don’t remember who sat in the seat behind my friend, and nobody I questioned in the cafe could remember what that person looked like. We were all so immersed in our own conversations, that weren’t aware of what else was going on.
This incident prompted me to take a look at additional security measures myself, and on the Microsoft, you’ll find an article about “How to protect your laptop from thieves”
I’m still going to keep going to cafes to immerse in creative work – it’s an environment in which I thrive in! Only now, my eyes and ears will be more open than they have ever been before.
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