Sometimes, it’s just too nice out to work.
On Monday, as the temperature hit 70 for the first time in months and the sun blazed over the city, those who could take the day off headed straight to the beach. And many who couldn’t did the next best thing: They took their laptops to the park to “work” in the sunshine.
Take Dmitri, whom we found sunbathing, in glasses and a cowboy hat, at the Conservatory of Flowers. He declined to share his last name because he was skipping work after being dismissed from jury duty. “Instead of telling my boss, I got the rest of the day off,” he said. “It was definitely inspired by the weather.”
As soon as he was released by the court, he went home, changed into a more fitting outfit, packed some La Croix, and biked over to the park. His plans for the rest of the afternoon consisted of listening to audiobooks and sipping on flavored sparkling water. “It’s not normally this warm, so you gotta enjoy it. It won’t last.”
Nearby sat Juliette, a tech worker who had told her boss she couldn’t clock in because she had family visiting from out of town. What she actually had was a need for vitamin D. She came to the conservatory to bask in the sun on a picnic blanket with some of her favorite snacks. “It was initially going to be half the day,” she said, “but then it extended.”
She said that if her boss asks about the day with her family, “I’ll say, ‘It was very nice. I enjoyed the weather.’”
On another patch of grass lay Kerri Mahoney, 22, who had skipped class at USF. “I just looked outside and was amazed. I was cleaning my room, and I opened the window, and it felt extra warm coming in.”
A similar scene played out at Mission Dolores Park. Under the shade of a palm tree, tech consultant Joe Vasquez, 36, sat on a beach chair and worked on a PowerPoint presentation.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” Vasquez said. “I’m kind of procrastinating by just looking at all the beautiful people enjoying the sun.”
He planned to stay outside “as long as my computer lasts” and joked about installing outlets in the palm trees.
To be sure, it was an idea that many in the park, computers in tow, would be on board with.
Javier Hernandez, 39, manages the restaurant Tratto and lives in Nob Hill but had made the 25-minute bus trip to Dolores around lunchtime to finish his day working remotely. Wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and AirPods, he sat with a book, snacks, and a laptop. “It’s not ideal, because I’m still working, but it’s nice just to be out,” Hernandez said.
Atop a nearby picnic blanket, Luis Reyes, 25, was working on a presentation he needed to deliver Monday evening. He works for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy as a forest health fellow, so he spends most of his time outdoors. But he couldn’t pass up the chance to be in the sun.
“I’ve been waiting,” Reyes said. “We’ve known for a while it would be warm.”
In a sunny section of the park sat Lailee Connell, 24, a marketing professional who just moved to SF from LA. She planned to work from the grass for as long as her laptop didn’t get “fried” by the heat.
When the battery inevitably dies, she said, she would go jump in the ocean and “try to make it a fun Monday.”
By late afternoon, when the temperature rose to 78, visitors to Crissy Field East Beach had abandoned any pretense of working. There was not a laptop in sight. People swam, lounged on towels with books, and listened to music.
Doug, 28, didn’t have any assignments at his construction job for the rest of the day so decided to enjoy the afternoon with friends at the beach. His friend Danielle said they’d been anticipating the weather for a week. “‘BEACH,’ all caps,” one friend had texted the group chat after seeing the forecast. “We saw one warm day, and we knew we were coming to the beach,” she said.
Tyler Wall, 36, left for Crissy Field as soon as his morning meetings were over.
“I was literally taking my calls in my bathing suit,” Wall said.
He was lounging on a towel with a book and his 1-year-old puppy, Lola. The first sunny day of the season was the perfect excuse to take Lola for her first dip in the ocean.
