Hello there. I saw you, across the party, looking at me. You’re in HR, yes? Robert. From accounting. I normally I don’t like these happy hours at the office, nobody wants to talk about anything but work! It drives me up the wall. But I’ve gone through some changes lately and I’m keeping an open mind. You’re probably wondering how I got this body working in accounting, right? It’s a very common question, no need to be embarrassed.
Let me tell you about my standing desk.
I can tell by looking at your little warped potato body — now don’t get offended, that’s just how it looks from up here — that you sit all day while working at your desk. Don’t tell me — probably in a chair? I figured. I used to be like you! Sitting at home, sitting on the train to work, sitting at work, sitting sitting sitting. A quick aside — did you know that sitting in a chair all day will literally cause your body to reject your spine? I know.
It’s almost impossible to imagine, right? You look at me and see a ten foot tall god-man composed of living platinum with a voice like the sound of thunder, emitting cosmic radiation that your eyes must register as a brilliant fuchsia, but I assure you! I was not born like this. It’s all thanks to my Standing Desk. Like I said, I would stick my keester just about anywhere, until one day, I saw a news post — I believe it was online — about how sitting is bad and standing is good. I was astounded! Why would sitting feel so good if it were bad for you? But the science bears this out, there’ve been studies and everything. I haven’t read them, but I trust whomever wrote the post must have read the studies or else they certainly wouldn’t have the post-writing job.
With the Standing Desk, I immediately felt better. I had boundless energy and focus! But that’s not where the benefits end; my horrible posture was replaced with one so upright that I had to buy longer clothing. For many painful years, my knees would pop and click each and every time I bent my legs. But Post-Standing-Desk, the clicks were replaced with the dulcet tones of Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. Each winter I would look sickly and pale, cold to the touch, due to poor blood circulation doubtless caused by years of you-know-what. But after acquiring my Standing Desk? I awoke to find my old skin sloughed off. Burned away by the heat of perfectly circulating blood. I was Ancient Osiris resurrected on the banks of the Nile, Mother of All Men! I wore clothes only for the comfort of my coworkers.
Before long, I was eschewing La Danse Derrière in all facets of my existence. The Desk had changed me, yes. But it was not the terminus of my journey. My Standing Desk was merely the luminous marble entryway to a road that would take me to a state of consciousness freed from the shackles that have plagued mankind for millennia. I placed a treadmill in front of my beloved desk, and would sprint at full speed during the workday. I slept while jogging in place. Instead of riding the subway with a bunch of sitters, I would swim across the East River each morning. Sure, you don’t get the same amount of reading done and I had to replace my phone a couple of times, but the health benefits speak for themselves!
Next was my mind. Before The Desk, I scuttled from place to place, relying on my animal instincts. Fear above all. But one day at lunch, I lifted the shroud that had been draped over my conscious mind by eons of terror and hatred. I crossed the formless void and parted the shimmering veil that conceals the truth of the cosmos. I uncovered a wellspring of primeval knowledge and drank deep the crepuscular waters. O, to take my fellow humans by the hand and guide them gently to this hidden fount! But a mind cannot be forced open to the universe; the way can only be shown.
Before my Standing Desk, I would have wished that I had discovered it sooner. But I now see time stretching forth from me in every direction like an open meadow, no longer trapped in the mighty currents of its river. Traversing what you must perceive as an uncrossable chasm would be as easy as me, say, walking to get another plate of Judy’s really tremendous artichoke dip on the conference room table over there. Speaking of, I think I’ll go grab some now.
It was also important that I had a gel pad to stand on, otherwise it’s hell on your feet. Highly recommended.
shhhhh standing desks are the best
don’t hate on standing desks. how else am i supposed to stay awake doing this work i don’t care about at all in a very quiet & warm room with a door i can close?! only by the threat of falling down if i suddenly fall asleep, is how.
UM why are you not asleep right now? Except that “right now” is not a time normal people are at work? (Re: “Normal” – I don’t judge, I’m at the office right now.)
This was all great, but “whomever wrote the post” was just the perfect touch. So perfect that I almost stopped reading right there, fulfilled.
laugh now, my standing desk has helped The Toast run like clockwork and may have made me immortal, so
So this just happened.
I am doing the same thing… at the same desk. *spooooooky*
If I got a standing desk, would my gif game be as good as yours? Because that seems like a sound investment.
Well it’s worth a try! I think my gif fluency is due to a beloved immersion in popular culture and a tendency to be highly animated in real life. Also a good memory for remembering images. TBH, I’m kind of a walking, talking gif in person.
YES that’s exactly what I have and I love it!!!
I wanted the Kangaroo one, but the State of Kansas bought the Varidesk and I wasn’t gonna complain.
I’ve been thinking about getting one of those. Good tip on the gel pad.
My boss told me about a month ago that “sitting is the new smoking”. I think about that every time I sit, yet still I sit.
OH GOD I MISS SMOKING SO MUCH
literal LOL
*100 emoji*
Well, now you’ve got a standing desk you can take smoking up again, right?
(Do not take smoking up again)
Or at least eat bacon…
I didn’t want to quit smoking to begin with. It was a 100% involuntary cessation program called “cigarettes suddenly make me dizzy and nauseated.” It was literally an overnight thing. No idea what happened. Still bitter.
BTW, I do a themed collection on Tumblr (nearly)every Tuesday and you might be interested in this week’s Jeeves & Wooster collection.
I’m perfectly willing to sacrifice Enlightenment and a few measly years of my life for the glorious pleasure of sitting 20 hours a day.
I suddenly understand why people smoke.
Now that I’m from getting that artichoke dip, have you heard about Kale?
oh, the kalevangelists
My coworker has one of the moveable ones (you can sit or stand, they lift), and another is getting one (both for back problems), and tbh I’m incredibly jealous. Sitting all day really does make my back hurt!
(But thankfully none of them are THAT KIND of standing desk user, as mocked above lol.)
Yeah one of my coworkers just got one of those movable ones and I kinda want one too. I mean, between biking to work and doing HIIT workouts I’m already a statuesque (yet insufferable) godking, but I think I can take it up a notch.
I have one of these and it is made out of magic and sparkles. I yell about loving it all of the time. I might like it more than some of my cats.
I often wish my desk was taller, just so clients don’t come in and look down at me. I’d rather be at eye level.
yeah, I have a standing desk because I am super bad about hunching while I sit at a computer, and the back and shoulder pain (that I’ve never actually gone to a doctor for, of course) got increasingly worrying. I don’t stand 8 hours a day either, I shift between standing and a tall stool, but between the desk and my sweet vertical mouse, I don’t feel like I’m going to lose the use of my right arm by age 40.
also I am not obnoxious about it! Idgaf about losing weight or “sitting disease” or any of that bullshit, I just want to avoid a career-ending RSI, and I answer questions when people ask.
The sit-stands are great. I just got one too (we needed to change desks in one of my offices anyway as the last one was terrible).
We’re getting them when we move offices next year and I cannot WAIT. We trailed them, and that week I found that I ached less, my dodgy arm/shoulder was less bad, and also I wasn’t fidgetty as heck in the afternoon, because I could shift on my feet.
I want to sit recreationally, thanks. Not get home from sitting all day and be TOO SORE TO SIT. That is some bullshit right there.
During band camps, I used to spend eight hours a day on my feet- two playing at a standstill, six marching- and it turns out standing for ages actually hurts more than walking. Your feet are just sitting there, no movement to circulate blood or redistribute the weight. Get a treadmill for that desk or your feet’ll feel like they’re falling off.
My trip to Disney World and Universal a few years back confirmed this fact for me. We walked over 10 miles daily, but the standing in line not moving was the real killer.
Yes! Every time I hear talk of the standing desk, I think back to my customer service days, when I was required to stand at all times. It was hell! I would never ever willingly go back to that. I would, however, cheerfully walk in place for an hour or two while doing the boring data entry parts of my job.
Seriously. Did none of these scientists have retail jobs? Standing is the wooooorst.
“Seriously. Did none of these scientists have retail jobs?” EXACTLY.
My feet are ENTIRELY FLAT (fun fact: you’re supposed to have two arches, the main one and another called the metatarsal. I have neither.) Orthotics help me to walk the amount that I need to (which is a lot: I don’t have a car, and I can’t stand being crowded, so I will choose my feet over Toronto transit if I can) but I cannot stand for very long without the soles of my feet burning in pain.
I switched to a convertible desk because I was having burning/stabbing sciatic pain from sitting. Within a couple months, I had a bad plantar fasciitis flare and had to sit back down and wear orthotics whenever I was on my feet. Now, I make a point of switching between sitting and standing a few times a day. I can’t do either one for more than about 30 minutes.
Why do our bodies hate us, I can’t wait until the future when people are just software programs, no bodies.
Mine are not flat, but apparently I have…overly flexible arches? So I have an arch that just almost totally flattens under the slightest pressure but still looks normal in xrays and things. And yet the crossfitting, standing desk evangelist in my office will not leave me alone on the subject.
I sit in a way that would horrify pretty much any ergonomics specialist but at least it doesn’t feel like my feet are about to burn off starting with the arches.
14 hour bartending shifts have put me off any form of stationary standing for the rest of my life. Walking, fine, dancing, fine, but just standing not going anywhere? Kill me. Cut off my feet and kill me.
I have a desk/sales job now, but the floor of our showroom is bare concrete. A heavy sales day turns into a miserable experience fairly quickly.
Even walking hurts me. 🙁
If I stand/walk/run for too long, the tendons in my pelvis get really upset and I can no longer walk without a serious limp and sometimes my hips can’t even support my weight. I visit Disney World a lot and at the end of the day sometimes I can’t even hold myself upright on the bus back to my car.
I blame it on 6 years in retail, which required not-comfy-shoes in the dress code (how I would have loved to wear sneakers or Clarks or something!)
Warning- unsolicited advice, by all means disregard as necessary.
I had exactly the same thing happen to me, but in my case it was caused from an injury, so I went from totally able to walk/ run around to in incredible crippling pain in the hip flexor region from, say, cooking thanksgiving dinner. It turns out that if your glutes don’t activate (in my case because you pulled it severely and it doesn’t want to play with you any more), it puts all the work of walking into other parts of your body (like your hip flexors) that aren’t really meant to do that. Getting my glutes back into the game make things get better almost immediately. (Although in my case it took some physical therapy and still takes ongoing maintenance to keep things behaving).
Which isn’t to say that’s what happening with you, but if it’s something you’d like to change it’s an avenue to explore, if you haven’t already.
Oh, that’s possible, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what might have done it. It was a gradual thing over the years of my retail job, until suddenly I had it bad enough that my back seized up on me when I leaned over to grab a hanger from a 3ft tall rack and suddenly could no longer stand up straight without intense pain.
When that happened, I had an MRI and CT Scan and so on and the doctor suggested it could be sacroilitis, since I get the stiff pain when I’m sitting for too long, as well (it’s much worse when standing/walking), and I’m hyperflexible. BUT I also have 2 bad discs+spurs in my lowest lumbars which don’t help. My PT in 2012 had me doing exercises that probably were for my glutes? I’m not sure, but lots of lower back and leg strengthening. Unfortunately, after 6 months, I wasn’t seeing much progress and couldn’t afford the copay anymore. So I got a epidural steroid injection and most of the pain miraculously went away. (and gave me dysautonomia which meant 18 months of being unable to exercise at all, yay)
Your comment does remind me that I need to do my PT exercises more studiously, nevertheless. I’ve been riding a bike for the last year which has made me lazy about doing other kind of exercise. (also PT exercises are super boring and without visible improvements, there’s not a lot of incentive, and some of them actually HURT and my therapist said not to do it if it hurts but that brings me down from 5 to like 2 i can do lately, which is even more discouraging)
I’m always super defensive about “but I’m already doing my best!” in replies like this, especially when I’m extra hurty+exhausted like today, but I’ll probably think about it and concede that your advice was probably what my PT was doing and begrudgingly attempt to do better about following the exercise/stretching regimen. 🙂
PT exercises are horrifically boring and I am a super slacker for not doing mine either, even though they are the difference for me between pain and not pain and even though my PT was super awesome about the fact that I get super duper bored really easily and tried to give me “fun” challenging ones, and lots of them (At some point I was standing on the wobbly side of a half moon of foam on one leg while waving a weight around my waist and my head….all the other trainers kept telling her she was evil, and this was at a sports focused PT where they are used to doing diabolical things to athlete types) And technically one of them is just rolling my ass around on a lacrosse ball to keep the knots down, which isn’t even actually work .
So thanks for the reminder that my ass and I have an appointment with the lacrosse ball tonight 😛 And I am sure that you are doing your best! Pain sucks, and hip flexors are jerks : (
It’s true! Walking around still hurts after a certain point but I reach that point a lot quicker when I’m just standing in one place.
A standing desk would be fine for a little while but I feel like those convertible ones would be much better so you could just switch when needed.
Some of my coworkers have standing desks, which is fine. Some of those coworkers have joined the Cult of Standing Desk, which is less fine. That subsection is a royal pain.
“Pistachio!” they say (although they really call me by my legal first name), “Pistachio! You should get a standing desk!”
Sometimes, I smile politely until the penny drops.
Sometimes, the penny does not drop, and I (smilingly, politely) remind them that I have cerebral palsy. I do not like reminding them. I do not like reminding myself.
Sometimes, after the reminder, a member of the small faction inform me that a standing desk will cure my cerebral palsy.
That is when I employ a disappearing act.
I choose to misplace my annoyance and direct it toward the standing desks rather than the people behind them.
will….cure….?!?!?!?!?! That is incredibly terrible. Your restraint in displacing your annoyance to an inanimate object (and not rigging that inanimate object to fall on them) is admirable.
Well, there probably are, like, studies that show the standing desk does cure your cerebral palsy, along with cancer and lactose intolerance.
I’m sorry about your insensitive co-workers.
“Studies” = Things On The Internet.
Burr.
Sir?
I’m HR for my day job and have done a lot of accessibility stuff, and if I heard a report of that, that person would be talked to and sent on training (or at least that’s what I would strongly advise their manager.) It’s unacceptable. I’m so sorry.
At the moment I’m still more amused than anything, but I am preparing for the day when A Talk has to be had.
WTactualF coworkers?!?
It’s only two of them, and I’m constantly trying to educate them on what cerebral palsy actually is.
The Cult of Anything can be a huge pain: low-carb diets, bicycling, Watchmen Is The Best Graphic Novel Ever, doesn’t matter. (I have belonged to all of the above and I am so sorry.)
Light them on fire.
Obligatory: imgur.com/iuZCaDH
Can someone tell me how to embed images in IntenseDebate? I tried the usual HTML stuffs and the images just showed up as sad and broken :'(
When linking from a site that gives a page instead of an image location (such as imgur, above), you need to add .jpg to the end of the url. That links directly to the image and it will show up embedded. Alternately, right click on the image and click “copy image location.” That will append the .jpg for you.
Thank you!!!
My knees play Night on Bald Mountain, apparently I’m doing standing wrong.
Mine play a light medley of waltzes by Emile Waldteufel. It’s kind of distracting during conference calls.
I actually LOLed at this. Mussorgsky ftw!
I guess I just don’t get it. I assume that a standing desk is the same as standing in front of a cash register all day for 8 hours and the pain that left my body in was excruciating. Sometimes I sit too much and that gets uncomfortable but my body never feels like it’s going to break apart on me anymore…
Standing in front of a cash register doesn’t come with an Aura of Insufferable Smugness. It’s the Aura that provides the amazing health benefits.
There is…an incredible comorbidity of crossfit evangelists and standing desk boosters in my office. It means that I will never ever make an offhand comment about the relative level of anyone’s desk.
That’s why I want the adjustable kind. When I stood all day I ached to sit. Sitting all day also causes aching. I CAN’T WIN (until my boss finally orders that desk and then I assume everything will be flowers and sunshine)
the urge to send this to my entire office ….. i can’t resist …… we all have standing desks and we sit in our tall chairs all the time ……. it feels like being at a bar and it’s great …… how can i share it with EVERYONE without being THAT PERSON …… [faints]
I too work in an office where 90% of the employees spend all day sitting in raised standing desks. Apparently that’s actually worse than just sitting at a regular desk but I really do love my tall chair.
oozing down to the ground is much more fun than propelling yourself upward. standing up from a sitting position is like …. almost exercise. no thanks.
This is true, a coworker of mine has foot issues that were GREATLY exacerbated by sitting in a tall chair at her standing desk – her podiatrist was horrified.
Whenever I sit at one of those bar-style chairs at a coffee shop for more than 20 minutes the balls of my feet hurt from pressing them into the crossbar in the legs. If I had a podiatrist I’m sure mine would be just as displeased.
I managed to break the crossbar on a tall stool in Jamie Oliver’s the other day. I only sat on it for about 3 minutes!
Yknow who else uses a standing desk? Bill Brasky.
TO BILL BRASKY!!!!!
This is in direct response to the new study that says that SITTING IS ACTUALLY FINE, DUH, right?
http://fitisafeministissue.com/2015/11/10/new-res…
I’ll second those thanks. There really isn’t much I find more satisfying than a big, comfy chair.
Yeah that’s cool but how about this lying down desk:
(I want.)
I require this! It is excellent and slightly off-putting to those who don’t expect to see it. Perfect.
add in a massage feature, and… SOLD
!!!!!
I would give literally anything for this. Including a kidney.
You could get the kidney removed…at your desk!!
What a goddamn time to be alive.
What the? When does the hygenist arrive? And where’s the spit sink?
Yeah I 100% expect those screens to be playing a “how to properly floss” video
Yeah, I would not like that in a shared office space. It’s a very disempowering position: i’d end up constantly jumping up to see what was going on around me.
This does not have nearly enough likes.
I can barely stay awake at my current desk, this would be a disaster.
for reals. my body takes any hint that it’s OK to sleep and runs with it. anytime, anywhere baby!
I’m more worried about the laptop coming detached and smacking me in the face…as I sleep with a cat on my lap……..
My cat approves of that lying-down desk. Better lap, she says.
I neeeeeed one of them. (I have an actual back injury and that is genuinely the only position that doesn’t give me sciatic pain and make me lose feeling in one leg!)
You speak the truth. I have spinal arthritis and, currently, a shattered wrist. That angle of recline with a large armrest is the ONLY position that doesn’t make me consider death as a viable option.
I’ve made my life mildly better by getting a sectional sofa with reclining chaise lounge to live my life in until I am no longer an invalid. But if my laptop could live above my face for work purposes? I would be eternally grateful.
Someone posted that thing on one of my writing loops last week and every post for the next few days was just authors, drooling.
I feel like when I was in retail/ customer service and stood all day my knee always swelled to roughly the size of a grapefruit?
But maybe that’s fitness??
???
You also need compression socks and those hideous ergonomic shoes to be a proper smug-stander-up.
Pretty sure that’s why they call it getting swole.
I laughed so hard at this, omg, thank you.
” little warped potato body” yes thank you now i have a phrase for it. that is what i have.
“Also, have I mentioned CrossFit? Paleo?”
Why is it always ALWAYS those people?
Also let me tell you about how all those injuries people got from running in their Vibrams were because they simply weren’t using their weird ape-feet shoes as instructed on the tin and had nothing to do with a) why humans invented shoes in the first place and/or b) the very earth itself rejecting abominations.
little warped potato body
If I had a standing desk and drank 8 glasses of water a day, would I be perfect?
As a perfect someone with a standing desk who drinks (at least) eight glasses of water a day, let me assure you… YES. YES YOU WOULD.
Not if you’re still eating gluten, no.
Replace all gluten with kale. PERFECT.
Is it ok to mix kale, quinoa AND paleo with a standing desk? Will it open the door to true enlightenment or just produce unfortunate flatulence?
Add in a bra that fits, and you’ll be a god.
My standing desk was awesome until I got pregnant, and my back was like “HAHA HELLLLLLLL NO”
Also, increased risk of blood clots/DVT + standing all day = no thanks.
“Let me tell you about my standing desk” is the beginning and end of every nightmare
“Let me tell you about my standing desk” is what that guy who had all the captured wives in his basement would tell people each time they came to the door to keep people away.
“Let me tell you about my standing desk” is the first thing satan says to you when you die and go to hell.
“Let me tell you about my standing desk” is what your boss says shortly after asking you where you see yourself in 5 years.
I recently saw a van belonging to a company selling standing and treadmill desks, which made the claim of “increased concentration”. I feel like if I had a treadmill desk my concentration on my work would be seriously impeded, because I’d be focusing so hard on not falling off.
also…. how do you use stationary objects when you’re walking? am i the only person in the world who can’t read/write/type while on a treadmill? moving back and forth while my focus-thing is standing still is like being on a boat on rough waters and trying to lasso a just-out-of-the-bath wet toddler on the shore. (i think it’s because after walking long enough, my hips don’t really bend, but i sort of rock back and forth like wooden doll) (but still!)
I see people reading on the elliptical at the gym and I DON’T UNDERSTAND.
right??? i mean, at least there’s no motion sickness to combat, since it’s impossible to focus on the page for more than a second at a time anyway.
(and yet i’m highly skilled at walking-and-reading, as i proved all the time, catching up on the last pages of an assignment on my way to class, avoiding all hazards on the way)
Like… I’m not a CHICKEN. My head doesn’t stay in the same place like that. It’s jiggling all over the shop!
Surely, treadmill desks are a sign of the end times.
PRETTY GLAD it’s not a sign of malfunctioning, since y’all are backing me up
Matt, this is TRANSCENDENT.
standing desk is so 2010. walking desk is where it’s at.
New life goal, Debussy knees.
I suspect a standing desk would have the same ability as a seated desk to encourage my slouchiness and I would end up somehow flopped on top of it, beached-whale like.
I discovered this amazing site of the Early Office Museum
and they have a section about standing desks:
Why did book-keepers stand while they worked?
“It is conceded by all that a book-keeper’s desk should be of sufficient hight [spelling in the original] to require him to stand while at his work, for the posting and checking from one large book to another necessitates constant moving, and it would be very inconvenient for the accountant to seat himself and then rise again whenever it become necessary to refer to an entry in another book. The books of an establishment of sufficient size to employ the services of a book-keeper are usually very cumbersome, and should lie upon the counter or desk in an accustomed place, while the book-keeper passes to and fro from book to book, as occasion requires. Many firms will not employ a book-keeper who would attempt to do his work by sitting down. The book-keeper’s desk should slant on top, and be provided with a rack [above the slanted surface], for convenience in laying aside indexes, tablets, etc., where they may be easily reached when needed from time to time. Under the desk may be arranged shelves and places for books, or if these are deposited in the safe or vault each night, this would not be necessary.” (G. L. Howe and O. M. Powers, The Secrets of Success in Business, 1883, p. 313)
So until I can have the above, I refuse to consider a standing desk in my life.
This one even has room for a treadmill:
![]()
I am a bookkeeper and I require a desk like this immediately. So many receipts and invoices and statements to keep organized…
So I read a few of those papers and took a class and stuff, and if I understand correctly the science says that sitting all day is bad, not that standing all day is good. Actually, being immovable all day is bad even if you’re upright, because the point is that your body needs to be in motion every now and then to keep the metabolism happy, and that’s what the health benefits are all about. Standing still for 8 hours is not super different to sitting down for 8 hours. Maybe your posture gets better and whatnot, I wouldn’t know, but you don’t live longer just because you have great posture. You need to raise your pulse and move your limbs a few times an hour – shift your weight, take a few steps, wave your arms, IDK. Fidgeting is better than being completely still (great news for me, because you’d think I’d grown roots in this chair). The standing desk in itself won’t radiate health at you.
Honestly, this is the sole reason I drink so much water. It guarantees that I have to get up at least twice an hour – once, to refill my bottle, and a second time, to go pee.
So much getting up to pee. But otherwise I just turn into a statue. Although that was one reason I liked my standing desk when we trialed them, it was so much easier to fidget by shifting weight and stuff, instead of only being able to fidget by twisting myself into an awkward position that jacks up my neck. Even so. It’s hardly enough to be so smug and platinum covered.
When I was writing my dissertation a few months ago drinking lots of water was so helpful with keeping myself awake – having to get up once an hour or so to go and refill my bottle and/or go to the loo was the best thing I found for not just going to sleep on my laptop.
One of the best things about the Apple Watch is that it tells you to get up and move around every hour, just for a minute or so, if you haven’t already.
Yes, finally! I can BUY my way to moral superiority! This chance has never come before.
The poor ergonomist brought in by my company last week was SO RELIEVED that none of the attendees of the session had standing desks. (Thing I found out: standard desks are around the right height for 6’4″ people, WHOOPS EVERYONE ELSE.)
I was going to post about this, but I’ll do it hear instead: Bollox are desks made for 6’4 people. I’m 5’8 and every desk I have ever sat at has been to low for me.
I’m kind of intrigued by standing desks, but having worked service I know the pain of being on your feet all day (plus crappy lumbar region) so it would have to be an up-down one. However, I would give my right arm for an adjustable height regular desk, and one without that stupid bar that runs along the underside that knee -caps me everytime I cross my legs. If my desk could be just 2 inches higher I would be so much happier, I could fit my knees under the table (currently can’t wear heels to work because then my knees are rubbing the underside of the desk. My chair is on its lowest setting too, so that’s not an option.) and I wouldn’t have to make my wrists go at weird angles to use my computer AND i probably wouldn’t have such sore elbows because I wouldn’t have to put my elbows on the desk all the time.
Bleurgh. I really hate sitting behind a desk all day TBH. Having a shitty desk (admittedly not the worst in the office) really doesn’t help. I wish I could have a job that was sometimes behind the desk and sometimes out doing things.
Are risers an option for you? E.g.: http://www.futonland.com/index/page/product/produ…
I used to walk to work, walk home, and spend my entire shift (or shifts) on my feet, for sometimes a 12-16 hour day. When I got home, I’d fall into bed and if I had to get up to go pee or something, I walked like an old arthritic dog. I was less than 25 years old. You know what my coworkers and I used to fantasize about? Sitting at work. Yeah. So what I’m saying is when I FINALLY get my damned sitting job I will sit until my butt fuses to the chair. I am THAT committed.
After years of having jobs where I stood (various food service jobs, retail, A DATA ENTRY JOB FROM SATAN’S SOUL-which involved standing at a public access terminal in the county clerk’s office all day), last week I started my first desk job ever. It is glorious. I do not care the pain it will cause me or the years it will shave off of my life, because the apocalypse is coming anyways so who needs to live to be 90.
SITTING IS THE BEST.
YES. I have a new desk job (post food service, retail, hotel front desk, and teaching) and all of my coworkers who have had desk jobs for 10-15 years yap on and on about how much they love their standing desks. I’m like no y’all don’t understand!! Sitting is a gift!! Imma enjoy it.
#teamsitting
Is there any way I could get my knees to play Rachmaninoff?
” Instead of riding the subway with a bunch of sitters, I would swim across the East River each morning.”
WAHAHAHAHROFLOL
I saw a news post — I believe it was online
perfect
An odd, possibly helpful, tip that I learned from an Old Timey Factory Worker (he worked at a bottling plant and stood in front of a conveyor belt all day for decades): for many people, having a short box is a lifesaver for your feet and back. Really short, not a stepstool, more like 3 or 4 inches. One foot is nearly always on the box, so you are only standing flatfooted part of the time, part of the time your right foot is elevated, part of the time your left foot is elevated. He swore that helped with soreness, circulation, all that stuff, and he could still vault up onto a horse when he was in his 80s, so it worked for him, ha!
I put a small box under my desk to do the same thing while sitting, and it does seem to help. Maybe just by making you move around (but I fidget a lot, box or no box).
This will not help in many retail situations though, where the mere fact of trying to make your endless day more comfortable will bring managers down upon you, talking about how you don’t look ‘professional’. Nor, I suspect, will it offer protection from standing desk evangelists.
Nor, I suspect, will it offer protection from standing desk evangelists.
you could try hitting them with the box.
‘If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean!’ never ever stops being funny, managers. Really.
ACTUAL FLASHBACK TO MY OLD MANAGER AT DAIRY QUEEN
Light them on fire.
I want to like this comment more than once, but it won't let me.
And usually commenting on something several weeks old leads me to a shame spiral that prevents me from actually commenting on something even if I've typed the whole thing out. I will delete it, but this comment has made me overcome this shame spiral.
I don't even know what to do with an honor that great. I get caught up in the same shame spiral, mostly on something that I didn't realize, until I hit submit, was a year old.I hate that so much. Which is to say that I appreciate your appreciation.
#shamespiralsolidarity
Go team.