Building a Better Work Space

When I was in college I worked the last two years for the school in the “Admissions & Marketing” office.  As you would suspect from the name it was focused on bringing students to the college and the work seemed easy to me since I liked to talk and was reasonably good at it.  About 9 months before I graduated the Vice President for that department asked me to consider working as a full time employee, an offer that I accepted.  Two things immediately happened:

1. I began furiously searching the college bulletin trying figure out how to graduate as quickly as possible regardless what my degree would be in - hehe.
2. I was graced with a 3′X6′ table set into a corner with an uncomfortable “task” chair and my own phone.  I thought I had hit the big time, for the first time in my life I didn’t have to hunt for someone else’s empty desk to steal for an hour or two.

I worked at that college for a long time - 11 years - and almost all of that time I was using 1970’s steelcase desks which were not designed for computer work and “task” chairs without arm rests.  It wasn’t until my 10 year anniversary (when I had risen from being a student intern to asst. director of recruitment to assoc. director of recruitment to director of recruiment) that I got a new chair that was at least somewhat ergonomic.  Wow!  What a difference a decent chair makes!  I didn’t notice how big the difference was until I sat in my old chair again after a week or two in the new one.  (The old chair didn’t even indent where your bum was - it actually seemed to raise up!)  I left that position about a year and a half later to focus on my family as the travel requirements of the job were causing too much stress and discord at home.  I made sure to sneak my chair out of the office at 11:59 pm of my last day as an employee to replace the dining room table chair at my home computer.   What’s the point?  I’ve dealt with some pretty ugly ergonomic work space situations in my life and I’ve come to realize the value of being comfortable at your desk.  When I worked as a recruiter I really didn’t sit at my desk much of the day but moving to a Director position was a different story and made it clear to me you need your workspace to work for you. 

Most businesses were not prepared for the computer age and were not financially able to afford buying new ergonomic workstations as computers came into the business mainstream.  They simply paid extra health insurance benefits to their employees who ended up with bad backs, necks, and carpel tunnel syndrome from using old equiptment with new technology.  It would take at least a decade before most medium to large companies would hear whispers that they could save on health expenses by providing proper equiptment to their workers!  And it wasn’t until health expenses became a significant budget concern that they took seriously the idea of preventing these injuries with new equiptment.  And smaller companies usually weren’t (and still aren’t) well funded enough to make such changes even if they wanted to.

For the last 3 years I have worked at a computer desk 5-6 days a week for 8-9 hours a day though my wife claims it’s much more than that. ; )  I’ve graduated from cheap $150 Staples computer desks to far more useable desks that I made myself for not much more than that.  (I’m cheap.)  I have even set up a working prototype of what I call a tread-desk (story coming soonish - I promise) so that I can get some calorie burning in while ”bringing home the bacon” for the family. 

With an increased reliance on my work station has come an increased fixation on being comfortable while I work leaving me all too aware of how ergonomically poor most work offices are.  I cringe when I see someone like the guy who sold me my last car with his 15″ lcd monitor sitting on a 1950’s wood desk requiring him to lean forward and look down to see the monitor from his seated position - ugh!

Today, I’m looking at my workstation again, trying to figure out how to make it fit me and my work habits better.  I’m tempted to set up an entirely new website to focus on this issue as I really believe that the majority of office workers suffer from aches and pains that they don’t have to have because of simple ignorance to the ergonomic realities of their workspace.  If I do create something for further discussion on the issue I’ll let you know by linking to it from here.  Regardless, look for news on my tread-desk prototype in the next few weeks so you can take a look at how it might fit your workstyle.

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Update!!
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I’ve started the workspace project now. I’m sure it will take quite a while to get off the ground but feel free to drop by and offer some advice or maybe information about the space you work in. Clever WorkSpace