That makes sitting all day unhealthy for me. And I know a lot of people who fidget like this! When I stand, I actually have to align my body correctly so that I can, you know, stand up. My core does work, my legs do work, I'm not standing on one foot or slouching because that's harder when you're standing.
I could learn to have perfect posture, but I'm 43, it's not cheap to teach an old dog new tricks. A standing desk is a great investment for me.
On the other hand, my co-worker both has perfect posture at their desk and also has bad knees. A standing desk would be more problematic for them. A quality, expensive chair (almost as expensive as my standing desk!) is a great investment there.
As you say, why are we always looking for the one way to do things? Even if things are factual, there's no reason that the same experience is factually best for all people. Factually, a standing desk is great for me. Factually, it's not great for my co-worker.
Also, maybe it's all in my head, I don't get that "afternoon drowsiness" at all since I started standing up after lunch instead of eating and then sitting in a comfy chair.
A friend who is a USMC veteran used to tell me that standard procedure in a briefing was: if you're tired, go stand up in the back. Super hard to fall asleep standing up. I bet there's a big chunk of that here.
I justified it by saying, "We pay this individual over $100,000 a year, they are key to the following efforts, and the chair will last them for their entire career with the company. Not to mention it costs about 1% what we paid the recruiter who brought this person to us."
I made a similar argument at IBM (which got me into some trouble) which was that revenue per employee was up significantly from the period when everyone had an office, so why not have an office with some offices, some cubes, and some open space and let people work in the space where they are most productive? Total cost per employee was still going to be a lot less relative to their revenue generation than it had been in the past.
Too often people focus too closely on the one time costs and not the overall expense.
Admitting that the workers might know anything better than the management, even about their own preferences, is disruptive to this concept.
My previous supervisor (current coworker) was/is excellent about this. Yeah, of course the actual data will be front and center in the decisionmaking process, but he always makes a point to actually validate that data (through hands-on / direct observation or through his direct reports), knowing full well that there's no such thing as perfect data (there's always a missing metric or an unreliable source somewhere).
More importantly, he's willing to put himself behind his decisions, and always encouraged the rest of us to do the same for our own direct reports (and while I don't and didn't have any, I still took his lessons to heart): if you need to rely on / appeal to external sources of authority (be they higher-ups, data, "corporate policy", etc.) to assert your own authority, then your own authority is illusory, at best. By all means explain your reasoning, of course ("transparency is a dependency of trust" applies to any kind of computational system, including the kind that sits between our ears), but it should be clear that it's your reasoning, not someone (or something) else's.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/08/29/bullst-jobs-part-1-of-%...
> Research, however, suggests that warnings about sitting at work are overblown, and that standing desks are overrated as a way to improve health.
Who cares what research says. If someone says it helps them and they prefer it to sitting, that is enough proof for me.
> Sit-stand desks are not exactly inexpensive, but like many things in life, they’re fine if you like them. And if it helps alleviate some back and neck pain, so much the better. It’s just that most people probably don’t need them.
What more committed stance would you like the author to take? Since there are limited health benefits, nobody should ever use a standing desk?
The only point that I could get out of it, is that standing is not exercise. I don't know anybody who bought a standing desk thinking they are getting exercise...
In some select cases it can help with some select problems, but it is not objectively "good for you" nor "healthy." In fact, the study in question found that too much standing is in fact "bad for you"!
It really is a commonly held belief that standing desks are "healthier" than non-standing desks. Perhaps you don't value knowledge of this sort, but I certainly do.
You can sit at a standing desk. Even if it's not a mechanical one, you can sit in a taller chair. You don't have to stand all day.
You can't stand up at a sitting desk unless you get a Varidesk or something. But then you have a standing desk.
You even say yourself that a standing desk can help with some select problems. What select problems does a sitting desk solve that can't be solved by sitting at a standing desk? If one helps with some problems, and one doesn't, which is the better option?
And let's not downplay the "select" problems that it helps with. Mainly back pain, nerve problems and posture issues. These are not small, trivial problems for a lot of people.
Many of his articles could be summed up as: "No, XYZ is not the (best|worst) thing ever. (Eat|do|use) it if you want, in moderation, and don't worry too much about it. Except exercise. Do that."
Ia typical efficiency style of BigCo, some departments in our company have very nice expensive top-of-the-line sit/stand desks issued to everybody and most of the people there never use them for standing, while in other departments like ours one can't get it even after passing through the gauntlet of ergonomic forms and assessments - at the end it happens that they don't have a model suitable, whatever it means, to the office space we're in.
It's like the bit about open-plan offices. Management knows they're shit and you can't get work done in them. That's why they have offices of their own. You have to live with them as part of "paying your dues". And because it's an affordable panopticon.
Turns out that the company had a policy for the type of desk and chairs people could have. Senior scientists (mostly PhDs) got nice chairs and large desks. The technicians called them the "tunas". The technicians in the lab often had to share desks and had inexpensive chairs. They referred to themselves as "sardines". The BS/MS folks had medium size desks and and so were called "sartun". Mystery solved.
The good news is that after a few years management discovered that ergonomic/repetitive stress injuries increased medical problems and absences. Management instituted individual ergonomic assessments and provided desk/chairs matched to the individual's needs and it made work much better and reduced repetitive stress injuries.
not exactly. It is just "nicer" departments like legal, etc and more important/cool/key projects as the top management see.
>It's like the bit about open-plan offices. Management knows they're shit and you can't get work done in them. That's why they have offices of their own.
oh yes! The most fresh hot-off-the-pan "open" office plans that we've recently got don't repeat a foolish mistake of the open office plans they implemented just a few years ago - the few years ago they put everybody including directors (and sometimes even low ranking VPs) in the "open", while now it is like the old typical cubicle farm where cubicle space for plebs was surrounded by private offices for managers, etc. - only minus actual cubicles (for better inter-plebs collaboration and communication :). Full panopticon for the plebs.
"Research, however, suggests that warnings about smoking are overblown, and that not smoking is an overrated way of improving health."
Everything that we call science today was once alternately laughable or mysterious.
Only after things have been repeatedly tested, and alternative explanations thoroughly ruled out, can a claim be considered accurate. Everything was once alternately laughable or mysterious, until it was thoroughly proven to be true. There is a reason why we aren't letting your blood because you have a cold anymore.
While it's good for society to find and recommend things that are beneficial to most people, we shouldn't prevent people from doing the things that they find helpful.
My employer wins because I spend less time thinking about whether I would benefit from a sit/stand desk...at the very least. I suspect I get a real productivity advantage from it at times.
Another reason this is comparing apples to oranges is the potential downside risk given the difference in unknowns. Again, what is the downside risk of standing instead of sitting? Maybe sore feet, maybe a sore back, you'll know when you try it. What is the downside risk of treating your cancer with homeopathy? Maybe it doesn't work and you die. Not even in the same ball park.
When these things are in the same ball park: we know the risks involved and the risks are small. Under these circumstances, my argument stands: if someone likes taking homeopathy remedies when they get a cold and it is not a financial burden on them, who cares what they do. The only risk is having this same attitude toward homeopathy regardless of the ailment you are treating and then people start dying.
I've no desire to sit or stand.
Dell XPS running Debian works fine in this environment.
Unfortunately, office can't provide me this. So i am working remotely now.
My brain is lot less efficient in other environment probably because I've high amount of North European genetic material and my brain is most efficient in low temperature, maybe there is some evolutionary reason behind this.
This mechanism for which you speak is known as "placebo"
Imagine how ridiculous discourse would be if we couldn't make a claim without enumerating every single possible exception, or if every claim had to be prefixed with "there are exceptions, but."
Absolutely insufferable. Almost wish there was an HN guideline "don't respond to someone's general claim by attacking a single exception" so we can respond to those comments with the same level of banality.
I don't think that's ridiculous. Why not? People shouldn't be making trash general claims - now you say "don't point out exceptions"? so what's such a claim worth?
Imagine Jules. Jules likes to put her laptop on the counter and work standing for an hour after lunch, while having her coffee. ...helps her digestion, or neck or something..
Personally, I like standing and/or walking while working too. I think better, it feels like. I like walking meetings, especially if we're going to be scheming.
Anyway... Jules has a laptop, a counter and she can stand if she likes.
The problem (with problems) is that we^ can't live with "Jules likes X." X must be a universal truth, transformational but as yet undiscovered... something worthy of TedX.
In comes corporate and bureaucratic fact-finding, maybe some pseudo-science. Occasionally actual science weighs in, but those assholes always seem to hedge with fancy "maybes" and "more studies required." So, we create some corporate truth, a way for Jules to stand up with official, legible backing.
It's the same HN debate we keep having about open offices. We can't keep it at "I like/dislike this thing," thing must be quantifiably better.
Not all the decisions we make are factual.
^We means: HN, HR, OHS, furniture manufacturers, ergonomics auditors, techchrunch...