Anyone who works remotely knows how boring it gets being in your house all day, every day. Some telecommuters eventually graduate from their living room to their neighborhood coffee joints, which is why there are so many of these shops in San Francisco full of bored-looking freelancers on MacBooks bouncing between Slack and Excel.

But if you spend too much time in any space, it starts to suck. I experienced this as a telecommuter—reaching that inevitable point where the coffee shop, the library and one’s home all get dull. So then what?

If you’re somewhat of a thrill seeker, you might want to try working somewhere a little more dangerous. Or rather, somewhere you’re not supposed to work, or where no sane, normal person would ever work—you know, to make yourself feel a little more alive when you’re moving cells around in a spreadsheet for the 10,324th time this year, wondering if this is how you’re going to whittle away the next 30 years until capitalism inevitably ends. Besides, by the time you reach your 30s, being comfortable isn’t exciting anymore. I like being a little uncomfortable — it makes me feel alive.

Plus, anyone who’s ever read Dostoevsky knows that all great works are born of suffering. On that operating principle, I spent a few months telecommuting from places that no human ever should telecommute from, for health, safety or psychological reasons. I went into this without any guidance, so hopefully you can learn from my travails.

1. The Hospital

Review includes: Kaiser Permanente Hospital Cafe (Geary Street, San Francisco); Kaiser Permanente French Campus Lobby (Geary Street, San Francisco); Kaiser Permanente Oakland Lobby, 40th Street, Oakland

I never wanted to be a doctor, but I feel like I have a vague sense of what it would be like after telecommuting from the hospital for a few weeks. The background noise is quite different from what you’d find in a typical office — infirm people don’t make the same sounds that your cubicle mate does, and that’s not a good or bad thing; it’s just novel.

The cool thing about hospitals is that they’re semipublic spaces. No one stops you from going in, and no one asks you what you’re doing there. No pesky limits to how many drinks per hour you have to buy to stay on Wi-Fi. For cafe commuters, this is freeing.

Plus, there are a lot of bathrooms in the hospital, which relieves the stress of waiting in line at the cafe. But there are also a lot of people who have some serious bowel-movement issues, which, presumably, is why they’re in the hospital. Make of that what you will.

(As a disclaimer, I feel I should note that Kaiser is known as the fancy hospital. I imagine the experience at SF General might be different.)

Pros

There’s fast Wi-Fi, and everything smells hospital-clean probably due to some kind of chlorinated stuff in the air filters.

Cons

Just about every cafe or restaurant in the hospital had a surprisingly low health score. One cafe was in the low 80s, which seems worrisome for an establishment that is, like, literally in the hospital. Or maybe it’s a conspiracy — I mean, if no one ever got sick, there wouldn’t be a need for hospitals, am I right?

Also, Kaiser’s Wi-Fi filters “unhealthy” sites. If you try to go to any alcoholic-beverage-company’s website, you get a notice that the page has been blocked.

Overall

Not for germophobes.

The DMV

The best part of the DMV is that absolutely no one expects you to be there for any reason besides, well, having to go to the DMV. Never have I felt so invisible while working. You’re just another pissed-off patron sitting in a chair — or so your fellow DMV-goers think.

On the other hand, I’ve never been somewhere where so many people’s internal thoughts are freely vocalized. When the barista fucks up someone’s order, it’s all smiles and oh-no-problems, but when a DMV employee tells you to fill out the wrong form, people turn into the rage gremlin from Inside Out.

Pros

No one thinks that you’d be working here. There are no fears that you’ve overstayed your welcome, because really, who would ever want to be here? Plus, this place makes for some really interesting social observations.

Also, there’s usually a food truck outside, generally a hot dog guy if you’re on Fell Street.

Cons

Few outlets, no tables, difficult Wi-Fi experience. Everyone seems really pissed off.

Conclusion

Still better than Starbucks.

Target

This particular Target, the one at Geary and Masonic, is probably the worst Target in the city, frankly. Which is why I chose it. The downtown Target is big and well-apportioned; the SF State Target is cleaner. But the Geary-Masonic location is always encased by construction projects and has no windows, even though it would afford some great views of SF. There’s something faintly dystopian about that.

There is a cafe in here, with tables, chairs and Wi-Fi, and a few other people seemed—maybe—to be working. Even though it is branded as being a Starbucks, it turns out the “Starbucks” in Target is not really a Starbucks — it’s a licensed location, which means the employees don’t have a tip jar, and the receipt says “Target” on it.

Anyway, after buying a coffee and sitting at a table with my laptop, I felt like I was having a pretty normal cafe experience. The biggest difference between this and a Four Barrel or Peet’s — besides the horrible fluorescent lighting—is that the vibes in Target are downright weird. The employees look zoned-out, and half the customers seem to be going through some kind of midlife crisis. Why else would you be shopping for modernist lighting fixtures at 11:00 p.m. on a Thursday?

Pros

A big food selection — there are, like, seven food aisles of processed food! It’s generally open till midnight, which is later than every cafe in the city except that one weird 24-hour Starbucks with no bathroom.

Cons

The red logo looms over you like the watchful eye of Sauron.

Overall

If you love to snack while you work, you could do a lot worse.

Safeway

In the span of time I was at this Safeway at Church and Market Streets, I think I was the only person who wasn’t shoplifting or shooting up, and thus was functionally ignored by authority figures.

That said, even though I don’t partake in shoplifting myself, I’m very pro-shoplifting — especially from this place, as the prices and selection are terrible, and the employees seem pretty mistreated (by customers especially). Let’s be thankful that they are unionized. As far as I’m concerned, they deserve six-figure salaries for putting up with working here.

Anyway, there are a few tables, so you can have a conventional cafe-laptop-table experience while the security guards shuffle back and forth, kicking various people out.

Pros

As long as you’re not actively shoplifting, you’re pretty much ignored. The security guards are clearly overworked and underpaid.

Cons

Lots.

Overall

This Safeway is a security state and a testament to the failure of the neoliberal welfare state.

Walgreens

Real TBI-heads know that I’m low-key obsessed with the weird sushi-serving Walgreens on Powell Street. (Last year I wrote a review of that Walgreens, and even talked to corporate to get an explanation as to why they decided to employ sushi chefs in a drugstore.)

This is the only Walgreens in the city that is also sort of like a restaurant — there are tables in the front of the store! That means you can work or write or whatever while you have access to the full range of Walgreens goods and services—and, of course, their fishy-tasting sushi.

Pros

Honestly, a pretty nice ambiance. Big windows right next to the seating.

Cons

There’s a constant flow of traffic that feels chaotic. The coffee isn’t that good. None of the “fresh-prepared” food really is either. Also, the quixotic management decision to replace the windows on their drink fridges with screens…

…is as confusing as it is inexplicable. (I can’t imagine these save energy.)

Overall

If you don’t have any other option.

The backseat of a Lyft Line

This was unplanned but still ended up being one of the worst experiences of my working life — trying to prep and edit an article by a 4:00 p.m. deadline, which meant trying to figure out how to get the tethering function on my phone to work and hoping that the battery didn’t die and that the VPN connection was succinct.

Cons

Close contact to a stranger; constant attempts to avoid small talk; poor internet connection; discomfort in scrunching my body in so as not to take up too much space; traffic; dwindling power supply

Pros

None.