desk-job

Via the nonpareil Neat-o-Rama, comes the next phase of office furniture engineered to make one jump out of his or her chair, a surfboard like foot rest that requires one to constantly readjust one’s weight and make small shifts in one’s posture to remain upright.
It’s a clever idea and I bet it would be much more fun to rock and keep one’s balance rather than just standing still or going through a litany of sitting, standing and kneeling like one’s at Mass—but sometimes this idea of healthy ergonomics makes me want to jump out of my skin sometimes. I would imagine that the goal of all of these subtle and not so subtle changes to the work environment is to eventually allow us to redeem the virtues of being able to rest one’s feet and work in a setting not buffeted by distraction and walking the high-wire. The office is a venue for combating our general laziness and inactivity because we’re rather captives for what someone has deemed our own good, never mind that being seated—or even lying in bed is probably more conducive to creativity and productivity and fitness ought not to start or end at work. Besides, I think the layout of the office, even as a sandbox for collaboration, is changing too quickly for any of these sedentary iniquities to really take root.