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Anyone's office moving to "Standing desks"? 8

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Apr 11, 2001
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Sitting for most of the day is apparently really not good for you. When we design assembly cells at my new place standing and moving is now to a requirement, regardless of necessity (this caused some grumbling from the floor). Now there's kind of a "suggestion" that you can have a "standing desk" if you want one (I don't). I'm wondering how long until standing while working is a requirement for office personnel too. A company would probably reap health benefit rewards from implementing such a policy. Has anyone's company took the plunge yet?
 
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With us, it's only allowed with Doctor's note....for now. I haven't seen an ergonomics program here yet.

My last company started an ergonomics program, and after that, about half the engineers requested a standing desk, and I only saw about 10% of any one of those actually use it.

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I'm typing this while standing, at my elevating desk. I like it, when I feel the need to stand, I can stand. When I want to sit, I can sit. I'm probably 60% standing and 40% sitting.

One thing I recommend is one of the "standing mats" that you sometimes see in front of kitchen sinks (only much bigger). Standing on a concrete floor all day is tiring without one.

More to the OP's question, everyone one in my office has a stand/sit desk, but I'd say most just sit at them.

Are the desks being implemented standing only? Or do they move up and down?
 
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I've seen them advertised but admittedly never saw one in reality. Several colleagues however have had the height of their cube desk adjusted upward to stand and either only sat for breaks or used a tall chair/stool upon occasion.
 
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We have large workstations. My PC is on a low desk, to the left of me is a low desk, and behind me is a standing desk. I like to review drawings while standing but I'm not sure if I could use my PC standing all the time. Some in the office have all their desks high.
 
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I never used one and I can only think of a single guy in our office who had one. I always thought it looked a bit uncomfortable, besides, if you were in his office there really wasn't any place to sit down as he only had a sort stool that he could lean back on. Now there were several people who, while they had normal desks, did use a sort of 'chair' where they knelled on it:

URL]


Again, I don't really have a 'body type' that would make this sort of chair all that practical.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
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I knew a guy who worked from home that had his computer monitor mounted on the ceiling and a setup so that he could lay in bed all day while he worked. He wasn't injured or anything but I guess it worked for him. I would joke that one day I would read his obituary and it would read that he was killed by his computer monitor falling from the ceiling. He wasn't worried at all about it falling.
 
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"I knew a guy who worked from home that had his computer monitor mounted on the ceiling and a setup so that he could lay in bed all day while he worked. He wasn't injured or anything but I guess it worked for him. I would joke that one day I would read his obituary and it would read that he was killed by his computer monitor falling from the ceiling. He wasn't worried at all about it falling."

Was he an engineer? If he was and he dies that way, he sort of deserves it!
 
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Standing still all day isn't particularly good for you either. Ideally what you need to be doing is to change positions frequently, either by having a desk that can be raised and lowered, quietly and easily, or by using a walking desk, which I have at home. As IRstuff says, there are some tasks that you need to sit down for, but for reading emails and phone conferences a walking desk is fine. If I need to stop and think I switch the damn thing off, and if I'm building a model or working something out I sit at a normal desk.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Like in high school, when the teacher does something, like wearing a beret, it suddenly becomes absolutely uncool for the students to wear berets, the same thing just happened in our office.
The boss set up his desk in stand-up fashion a few months ago, so now there's no way you'll convince me to go stand-up. I'd just look like a brown-noser!

STF
 
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One of our managers has used a standing desk for a few years now. He suffers from problems with his back, and the fact that he's stayed with the standing desk rather than reverting to a conventional type indicates that, in his specific case, the standing desk has proved beneficial. I myself picked up a serious spinal injury a few years ago and in my case regular exercise and keeping weight off works better than standing in managing my injury.
 
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I saw this in an oil refinery in Sweden. The guy's desk could move up and down so he could change positions -- sit, stand -- not sure about lying down :). I'd love it, I sit like a bag of potatoes all day.
 
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My company moved offices at the beginning of the year. They let us request standing desks. Now a number of us have Varidesks. I love it. I didn't get a whole lot of input on what I got but the 36" desk they ordered just barely fits two 24" monitors. It has a two-tier design. I have my keyboard and mouse on the lower front tier and my monitors on the upper back tier. The lower tier is just big enough for me to move the keyboard to the upper tier and markup on 11x17 sheets or draft on letter sheets. I also have just enough room to put documents on the upper tier and type below. Since it is a Varidesk I can move it up and down. The only snag I have run into is moving it will sometimes giggle my monitor cables and I have one monitor cut out. Overall a first world problem. I would estimate that I stand 75% of my day and sit the other 25.

Robert Hale, PE
 
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