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

[Careful]

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?

 

[SkipVought]

When I was working, I had this fabulous device that I would hold by a handle and I would exersize many times a day by following it, sometimes briskly and other times not so briskly, to many places: conference rooms, colleagues’ cubicals, shop floor meetings, BS sessions and back to my desk. Oh, by the way, it also held java.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my OLD subtlety...
for a NUance![/sub]

 

[EdStainless]

I got a Varidesk (like Robert's) for my office (which happens to be at home).
I normally sit all morning, and then stand for a while to start the afternoon. It keeps me awake!
If I find myself fidgeting I'll so back to sitting.
The change of position is what is good for you.
The only thing that I don't like is that the lower tray for the keyboard makes the KB a bit too high for me when sitting.
I might just remove it. There is room in front of the monitors to place the KB there when standing.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube

 

[bridgebuster]

We're moving into a new space soon - cubes to tables - the table tops can be raised and lowered to accommodate standing or sitting.

 

[jari001]

Couple people at my office have a sit/standing desk and they also report that the standing seems to keep them more alert through the day. One of them is an engineer and he says that drawing work is easier for him standing up - the adjustable table height lets him get a good angle to make the bending and stretching on the larger prints easier.

 

[JohnRBaker]

That's why at one time, many drawing boards were vertical. When I started my first professional job, back in Michigan in 1966, they had just converted all of their vertical drawing boards into horizontal drafting tables. They left one large vertical drawing board in place mostly for creating large templates for the optical tracer used on the heavy-plate, flame-cutting machine. It was about 10 feet long and it was ideal when needing to strike large arcs on Mylar using a length of light chain and a Rapidograph pen.

I only had to use it a couple of times, but I think I would not have liked to work like that all day, every day. Of course, in 1977 we got our first CAD/CAM system and we had a large format pen plotter so from then on virtually all of the burner-templates were 'plotted', ink-on-Mylar.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
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The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[3DDave]

There must be some range between Standing Desks and Run For Your Lives Desks. Perhaps a Saunter At A Constant Pace Desk? In these days of easy access to automation and wireless components one might make a desk that wanders about at random, requiring the users to be really engaged with their work. Stop paying attention and maybe it takes a while to track the desk down. Certainly with some hacking it could lead to a desk that uses facial recognition to actively avoid the user. Happy April Fools Day.

 

[jari001]

I was in one place that did have a standing desk that was attached to a treadmill. The original inhabitant got it for themselves so they could run during lunch break and mosie during the rest of the day. The guy left for another site but I am told it was a sight to behold and a wonder he never hurt himself. An inspiring example, just not sure corporate liability teams are that risk tolerant.

 

[berkshire]

Some years ago, the company I was working for drew up plans for a new router room, for CNC routers/mills. As part of this there was an office cubicle with two desks and computers for the programmers to use when setting up jobs on the machines. The general manager took one look at this and said" I am not going to have those lazy sods sitting around and drinking coffee all day , put in stand up terminals for them , so that was what we got.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[nissan4ever]

My office is setup with motorized standing desks for every open cubicle. I see very few people use it for the entire day. I use it sparingly, but mostly after lunch. Overall I like having the option to stand and work when needed. It's great to use when you need to review stuff on colleagues computer instead of hunching over or borrowing a nearby chair.

 

[bridgebuster]

We have that too but the overwhelming majority of us sit.

 

[moltenmetal]

I could never stand all day- it would kill my feet. Even on a fatigue mat.

Being able to change positions would be grand. But I need to keep my cube walls, thanks. Put me in an "open office" with tables and I'll fail- hell, I already fail in the cube, and need a day at home every week so the tasks I find impossible to focus on in the cube can actually get done (if I schedule them properly).

 

[Sparweb]

A few of my (new) office fellows are setting up standing desks. I'm seeing the advantages, and considering it for myself.
The units they're getting - little shelves on scissor stands - are a bit flimsy and don't allow much keyboard + mouse space.
I have a drafting table at home, and since I don't draft on paper any more, it seems like something I could modify.

STF

 

[Sparweb]

OK
Got mine. I like it.
I've had it for a couple of months and I'm still standing for much of the day. My back is thanking me, my feet have a different opinion. New insoles helped.

I also solved the keyboard tray problem: I cut a spare sheet of honeycomb panel, put wood trim around the edges and matched the holes where the screws go.
Put more wood trim on around the screws to support the extra cantilever forces. Coat of wood stain, and a clear-coat on the honeycomb panel so you KNOW what it's made of.
Now the keyboard shelf is big enough for a full-size keyboard, mouse pad, coffee cup, and a notepad.

No one believes the theory except the one who developed it. Everyone believes the experiment except the one who ran it.
STF

 

[BUGGAR]

I always liked working out of construction job site trailers. Upon almost any excuse, I could go out and play in the dirt.

 

[FeX32]

We also have the option to obtain a standing desk upon request. I have so far opted out.

What do you guys think about places moving to an "open concept"? We have been considering it and there are many mixed feelings about how it might go.

 

[GregLocock]

Open office? I have never heard any engineer in favor of them.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[IRstuff]

"Open concept" appeals to the bean counters, because you can get more engineers per square foot of floor space. Bad enough if you're a junior engineer to share a cube with one other engineer, but 3 is a bit much.

That teensy bit of overhead cost reduction is more than offset by the loss in productivity, I would think. Note that most bean counters don't bother to do the math on the downsides of their proposals. I once was at a place where they decided to put all the copy machines on timers, which saved them lots of money with the utility, but it meant that every time an engineer would need to make a copy, some poor program would get socked for about $10.00 because the company saved about $0.75 of electricity cost.

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[zeusfaber]

I may previously have mentioned my employer's thirst for office fads destined to drive engineers to distraction. I think the last time I posted on the subject, we had to book ourselves a desk every day, with there never being quite enough to go around. This is now giving way to a fabulous scheme where you can't book desks any more but, if you've got one and need to go off to a meeting for more than ninety minutes, you have to log off and clear out so someone else can move in. Oh how we laughed when they told us about that one.

 

[bridgebuster]

We moved into an open office last December. The bean counters who run the company said "this will improve collaboration", "increase productivity", "provide new opportunities", "leverage our strengths", "cut across business lines", "blah, blah, blah". Meanwhile they avoided the truth: Saving big $$$$ on NYC rent; we have three times as many people in the same space. To me, it's like the old days; everyone in one room; no big deal. One drawback, the geniuses who designed the office didn't provide enough toilets and they didn't make them handicap accessible to boot.

Two things originally: 1) There weren't going to be assigned seats but at least the management heard our complaints and gave in. however, at first they said nothing could be left on our tables at the end of the day. However, they gave in on that also (I think the admins who were charged with badgering us got tired of the daily abuse.) 2) Not enough seats for everyone (not just in the restrooms), which didn't work out either. Working remotely doesn't always work. They transferred a group of people to another office to create more seats.

The idiots who run the company aren't engineers; they don't know anything about engineers, or engineering, or how we work. The would rather waste money on things like Standout, Sales Force, Smart Goals, which don't help with designing a bridge or road, rather than providing us with the technical tools we need.

 

[IRstuff]

One has to realize that the norm of the world is that there's almost always an over-abundance of idiots; unlike Lake Wobegon, not all managers are above average.

We used to have a saying at a previous company Z, "Z University, where you learn what not to do."

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