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I wish physical movement was somehow integrated with software engineering more. Weak solutions like standing desks don't make it the cardio equivalent of someth
by wufufufu 8y ago
I wish physical movement was somehow integrated with software engineering more. Weak solutions like standing desks don't make it the cardio equivalent of something like a cleaning job.
It's sad that we sacrifice health for more money only to spend it on health-related issues we accumulate from our career choice.
I always thought that maybe having to carry a medicine ball up a hill in order to deploy a service would be fun.
- DamnInteresting 8y agoMy attempt at a solution was to acquire a treadmill desk. It's certainly better than sitting all day, but I'm still nowhere near as fit as I was when I carried heavy ladders around a multi-story department store all day.
- eckza 8y ago> I always thought that maybe having to carry a medicine ball up a hill in order to deploy a service would be fun. Fittingly Sisyphean.
- wufufufu 8y agoHa. And maybe the mass of the medicine ball is proportional to the size of the changes.
- tokyodude 8y agoDo people with cleaning jobs live longer and/or are they happier? It's certainly not the stereotype in my head but I have zero data. Do any jobs with lots of manual labor live longer, healthier, and happier?
- gshakir 8y agoIt depends if they are happy with their jobs. If they are going to be tired and miserable at the end of the day, the motivation aspect is not there.
- hungerstrike 8y agoRecently it was found that prolonged use of cleaning products is as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Ahh, well - you gotta put something on the old tombstone someday right?
- wufufufu 8y agoI don't believe that. You can clean safely. How do you smoke a pack a day, safely?
- cup-of-tea 8y agoNo they don't. Burning more calories will actually make you die sooner.
- drdrey 8y agoWhat the hell are you talking about? When was the last time you heard your doctor recommend to burn as little calories as you can, and avoid 30 min of exercise a day at all costs?
- rojobuffalo 8y agoAgreed; the physicality of writing software is one of the worst aspects of the whole practice. I try to combat this by setting up a problem which I don't yet have a solution for, and then going for a walk to think it over. I think walking for one-on-one meetings is also a useful thing to do. I've wanted for a while now to set up a pull-up bar in my office. I had one before and it was another good way to take a quick break and get the heart rate up. Has anyone been in an office that had some sort of exercise setup combined with white boards? I often find myself going straight to a white board or notepad after an exercise break.
- Uberphallus 8y agoI dream about a rule that says that, when someone organises a meeting they have to do 10 well-form pushups per attendant. Bullshit meetings gone + exercise up = Win-win.
- Smaug123 8y agoMy cunning idea for stand-ups is to make every participant plank continuously while they're speaking, for a similar reason.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoFor many software devs,standing up is the equivalent of normal people planking.
- lostlogin 8y agoBike meetings solve this problem too.
- wufufufu 8y agoImagine a world where the management chain is characterized by increasing levels of upper body fitness. Sexist, but hilarious.
- wufufufu 8y agoA hangboard is also great for an office if you're into climbing.
- OldSchoolJohnny 8y agoNothing in the world stopping you from dropping and doing pushups and squats every half hour or so during work. Nothing.
- lemonberry 8y agoA very underrated solution. In my experience, I was a personal trainer for a year or so, people percieve exercise as a workout and in a very binary form. They can either get their whole workout in, or nothing. By reframing it as physical activity and accumulating that activity over the course of the day you can stay relatively fit.
- Moodles 8y agoWhy can't people just make an hour before or after work to go to the gym or go for a run?
- martin-adams 8y agoWorking hours and family commitments to name one.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoYou can exercise with family
- mikestew 8y agoBecause of all the other things they have to “make an hour” for. Pick up kids, make supper, meh, I don’t to make a whole list, use your imagination. Personally, yes, that hour with a musical instrument in my hands is sacred, and dogs need walked for an hour whether I want to or not. But I’m not most people. Besides, they owe neither you or me an explanation. Our hypothetical people said that’s not a workable option, what else ya got?
- Moodles 8y ago
- Uberphallus 8y agoYeah, sometimes I'm envious of construction workers, with sculpted bodies (as long as they don't indulge in food and alcohol), enjoying the sun or the cold (I like cold, weird I know), and having easier sleep without things from work cluttering your head. But as I said, it's only sometimes.
- brandonmenc 8y agoI love to exercise - but I really like being able to keep that separate from other aspects of my life. I've worked manual labor jobs. They suck, and they damage your body. If you think sitting all day long is bad for your health, imagine what even just pushing a broom thousands of times a day is doing to say, your rotator cuff. Pack a healthy lunch, keep your hours reasonable, get up from your desk and walk around every couple hours, exercise in your free time, and your office job won't kill you. As to which type of job is more "fun" - a construction foreman once told me that he always sees these guys who try working construction to get away from their office job, who try to find meaning/enlightenment through manual labor - a sentiment you hear here a lot - and they always go back to their office job. Always. But the guys who manage to escape the jobsite for the office - they never, ever come back.
- j9461701 8y agoAnd yet construction workers were the happiest group surveyed: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/construction-workers-topped-rankings-happiest-employees-matt-jones https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/construction-workers-topped-r... Personally, I really couldn't agree more with what you're saying. The prospect of doing manual labor for a living just sounds awful. Getting dirty and smelly, blowing out my knees and ruining my back, having my brain stuck in idle for 8 hours all day every day, massively increasing my probability of suffering a crippling or fatal work-related accident. And an office job has the possibility of leading to a work-from-home situation, which would allow you to get whatever level of exercise of whatever type you want every single day of the week.
- TheCoelacanth 8y agoConstruction industry, not necessarily the people actually doing the construction. That is easily explained by the relatively good economic performance of the construction industry at the time the survey was conducted.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoAnd guess what group was #2: Software developers. Now look at long-term health and economic prospects of the two careers, beyod short term satisfaction with survivorship bias. Former developers are better off than former construction workers.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoI try to take a couple breaks, and then use the stairs (instead of the elevator). I try to use the toilet one floor up or down as well.
- kaybe 8y agoMaybe the best would be to work 3 hours in the morning, go surfing or skiing or whatever, and then work 3 more hours. The productivity would at least be the same and happiness would be higher.
- komaromy 8y agoI recently acquired a DeskCycle and so far it seems like a great solution to this problem. It's much cheaper and less bulky than a treadmill desk and fit under my existing desk with minimal reconfiguration. The only problem is that I now have to wear shorts to work or I get excessively sweaty during the day, so it may not be feasible in less permissive work cultures.
- usrusr 8y agoI've come to similar ideas from the opposite side (being a crazy sports enthusiast my body needs rest more often than not during office hours, so physical activity would be more a side effect than the goal): When waiting for the computer forces us to idle, most of us try to fill the void with attempted multitasking. Be it half-assing something productive or trying to grab some instant gratification from our favorite distractions, it doesn't matter, it throws us or our the flow. This is why faster compilers raise productivity by much more than the directly saved man-minutes. Now what if we could actively speed up the build? (or whatever else we are waiting for?) Imagine a system that throttled down a bit during "unattended" builds (developer staring at hacker news would count as "unattended"), and only opened up fully when the user does "the compile thing", similar to your idea of carrying a medicine ball for deployments. It could be something hardly physical as repeatedly (impatiently!) tapping a button, but it would feel much better with a more physical activity. What I envision is a big, satisfying crank. The Compiler Crank. With a subtle sound (or haptic) effect that stops when the build is done, bonus points for force feedback via modulating the resistance according to occupied cores. It's not intended as a fitness device, just something to keep you occupied with something that does not cause the dreaded context switch, and does not promise occasional gratification (never ever try filling those gaps with Solitaire!). Whatever productivity it would waste during hn-induced "unattended" builds, I think it could make up tenfold by maintaining high engagement whenever engagement is sufficiently high to actually use the device.
- wufufufu 8y agoThis is awesome lol. We have a cloud CI system that builds deployables. Maybe the build priority on your branches is proportional to the RPM of your crank.
- zzzeek 8y agoI googled because I thought this might exist, but it doesn't quite, a computer keyboard that exists as a giant floor mat. Type every fifth email on that thing and that would be quite a workout.
- Alex3917 8y ago> I wish physical movement was somehow integrated with software engineering more. Just drink a lot of coffee so that you're forced to get up and go to the bathroom every 20 - 30 minutes. (Or mint tea, if you want the same effect without the caffeine.) As a bonus it will also prevent Parkinson's.
- stephen_g 8y agoHaha, I sort of end up doing this with tea. I just love tea, have five or six cups a day, keeps me very well hydrated. It would probably be pretty bad for me if I had milk or sugar, but luckily I like just plain black tea.
- aoner 8y agoI can't find the specific paper(s) right now but a simple tip I also follow is to stand and then sit again (or walk a bit) every 30 minutes. This greatly decreases your risk to cardiovascular diseases. It works since you thoroughly pump your blood through your body once in a while.
- spyder 8y agoScrolling in editors with a treadmill :D