I don't know about you, but I'm never as productive as I am when I'm working from home. Away from the distractions of the office - the easy availability of gossip, the candy dishes, the paper clips - I accomplish so much.

True, technically, it's not work work, but hey, the laundry has to get done some time, doesn't it?

And yet, even I must admit that "writing" at home isn't perfect, either. Why should I be wasting my precious work time doing household chores when I could be, well, doing something for me, like enjoying a nice cup of coffee, say, or surfing the Web?

Which is why I am psyched about the growth of Wi-Fi - a new high- speed wireless technology that lets laptop users with the right technology log onto the Internet from a variety of "hot spots": parks, coffee houses, movie theaters.

"Wi-Fi" - short for wireless fidelity - "is going to change my life," I told a friend the other day, as I headed over to Starbucks to start my workday.

What I didn't realize was that I wasn't the only one with a new cubicle in mind. When I arrived at my office-away-from-office, it was jammed with colleagues who'd gotten to work earlier than I had, and were now hogging all the good desks, er, tables.

As my Herald deadline neared, and I hovered over a table hoping to drive out the occupants with my looming presence, a distressing thought hit me:

I'll never get a seat in a coffee shop again. Although, considering how the atmosphere in such places is likely to change, I guess that could be just as well.

"You'll have two distinct groups in there," a consultant I know noted. "The first are those who work at home and will simply move their base of operations to Starbucks."

Uh-oh. I know some of these people, and you probably do, too. They boast about working in their pajamas, and not brushing their hair until noon, and although they don't like to admit it, they watch a lot of daytime TV.

So instead of black-turtleneck-wearing-cigarette-smoking-poetry- reciting beatniks, we'll be confronted by people with morning breath, wearing nighties and watching Dr. Phil on battery-operated TVs while they pretend to work. Progress.

Then there's the second group: The Type A's who want to work even when they're not in the workplace.

They'll be playing office politics at Starbucks, trying to beat you to the last reduced-fat lemon scone, or denigrating you to one of the baristas: "Can you believe how much milk she adds to her coffee?"

A territorial group, they'll be there with name plates on their work stations, shushing you if you make the mistake of chatting while they're trying to work through a challenging report.

Soon, workplace cliques will form. Then your new "co-workers" will start hitting you up for walkathons, trying to sell you Girl Scout cookies, and insisting on having an office holiday party.

Geez. It's enough to make a girl long for a good old-fashioned office.