About six months back, I discovered that I can actually be fairly productive. The thing is, I also discovered that I can only be fairly productive when removed from my desk.

Normally, I’m an inveterate multi-tasker. I can’t do just one thing at a time, and, as a result, often end up doing too little of too many things to actually ever get any of them done.

The discovery, though, was that if I pull myself outside of my usual work environment (by parking in a coffee shop, or coffeeing in a local park), I can suddenly focus in on a single project and blaze away.

Based on that revelation, I became a regular at the Coffee Pot, a cute little independent coffee shop around the corner from my house. Then, after a while, I also started occasionally heading to Starbucks (around the corner in the other direction) – for variety.

But there was a problem. After a few visits, I realized that I actually liked Starbucks better than the Coffee Pot. And I felt oddly terrible about that. I mean, I always root for the underdog, and the long-standing Coffee Pot (by now, a Hell’s Kitchen institution) was certainly the David of this fight, warding off the evil, multinational, McHomogenizing Goliath that is Starbucks, Inc.

I knew that, I really did. But the chairs at Starbucks were more comfortable, and the music was much, much better. The Coffee Pot played crappy local radio, whereas the Starbucks around the corner one afternoon cycled through a set including Lucinda Williams, Death Cab for Cutie, Clem Snide, Guster and Neutral Milk Hotel – none of which would ever, ever pop up on New York radio, despite having regular places in my own playlist rotations.

And then, of course, there was the broadband thing. As a T-Mobile customer, adding unlimited HotSpot service was relatively cheap, meaning I could stop into nearly any Starbucks in the city, pick up their wi-fi, and get to work. At the Coffee Pot, I’d used my cell phone as a wireless modem, and made do with the pokey dial-up speed. But after years of broadband, stepping back to (circa 1995) 24kpbs was more than a bit painful.

So, the chairs, the music, the wi-fi, it all added up. And by now, I’m a Starbucks regular who occasionally hits the Coffee Pot, rather than the other way around. Still, I have discovered that if I ask for a single tea bag, they’ll give me a Venti tea for the price of a Tall. Sure, I feel like a douche-bag every time I say “Venti” to one of the baristas, but it’s entirely worth it; I may still be shopping at Starbucks, but fifty cent discount by fifty cent discount, I’m doing my small part in sticking it to the man.