8 ms·

You know what the problem with problems is? I'll tell you the problem with problems... :) Imagine Jules. Jules likes to put her laptop on the counter and work

• jm__87 8y ago
  Thanks. I stopped reading the article here: > 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.
  • savanaly 8y ago
    By that logic, I guess homeopathy is also perfectly proven as effective?
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    • sebleon 8y ago
      Yes, if someone has a home remedy that gets great results, why switch to a substance from someone in a lab coat?
      • JshWright 8y ago
        Exactly, that's what I keep saying about my bear repellent rock I keep on my front porch. Haven't seen a single bear yet.
        • narrowingorbits 8y ago
          People whose reactions when confronted with something new, unknown, and unexpected are to laugh at it or respond sarcastically, instead of to accept the surprise, approach with curiosity and humility, and question if there is something they're not understanding, are unlikely to ever discover anything new. Everything that we call science today was once alternately laughable or mysterious.
          • asdff 8y ago
            Because science isn't about belief, its about reasoning. One person having a good response to something doesn't say anything about that something, that person, or that good response. 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.
            • kd5bjo 8y ago
              Yes, but one person repeatedly having a good response to a thing is good evidence that thing is helpful to that person. 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.
        • brlewis 8y ago
    • jm__87 8y ago
      Honestly, I see these sort of comments on here all the time and it drives me nuts. Comparing homeopathy and a standing desk is comparing apples and oranges. Everyone has experience with standing - we evolved to do this. Taking homeopathy remedies to cure illness is not something we evolved to do, so we do not know what the potential downsides may be. 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.
  • JshWright 8y ago
    Turns out, you and the author agree... > 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.
    • epmaybe 8y ago
      I will chime in here and say that I found an inexpensive standing desk implementation here: http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dolla...
      • trhway 8y ago
        my post-office-move cardboard boxes, fine-tuned by printing paper packs, beat even that on price. 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.
        • bitwize 8y ago
          I'm going to put out a guess and say that most of the department with the nice desks have "Manager" or "Director" in the title, and your department is something like software, which is management for purposes of determining overtime exemption and plebs for every other purpose. 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.
          • trhway 8y ago
            >I'm going to put out a guess and say that most of the department with the nice desks have "Manager" or "Director" in the title 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.
  • ravenstine 8y ago
    I can't think of many subjects that can't be written in the same manner. "Research, however, suggests that warnings about smoking are overblown, and that not smoking is an overrated way of improving health."
• wild_preference 8y ago
  This kind of thinking extends to the sort of Reddit/HN comments that think they're tearing down someone's argument by pointing out a single exception. It's some sort of "gotcha" culture. 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.
  • Chris2048 8y ago
    > or if every claim had to be prefixed with "there are exceptions, but." 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?
• ben_jones 8y ago
  Meanwhile there's a few enterprising companies peddling $1,000+ desks all on the VC's (Saudi Arabia's?) dime.
• sephware 8y ago
  True, but anecdotal data are also useful. I came to this thread to see what a bunch of other deep thinkers think about standing desks and if they have any stories to tell. For my part, I made one some years ago, and have found it to be invaluable, not because of the standing, but because it's uncomfortable to stand but not distractingly so, which keeps me moving around a bit and shifting positions and taking short breaks while I work. Although the same is true about sitting down at a desk, but it's easier to do these with a standing desk which encourages me to do them more often than when I'm sitting.
• closeparen 8y ago
  Businesses can't seem to admit that they're spending money based on employee preference. There has to be a metrics-driven productivity or healthcare spending argument to justify the budget.
  • babahoyo 8y ago
    wow that is pretty dystopian
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    • PeterisP 8y ago
      But it's true anyway
  • m104 8y ago
    Data helps corporate management avoid personal responsibility, so it's not just "As a leader, I think..." but rather "Look at what the data is telling us to do." Yeah, it sucks.
    • waterhouse 8y ago
      Hmmph. Couldn't data be "I asked n employees what they thought of x, and y% of them said they strongly approved of the idea"? I once included a statement like that in a complaint about a wrongheaded decision involving company-paid meals, and the decision was subsequently reversed.
    • yellowapple 8y ago
      This is why I personally value and respect leaders/supervisors who don't try to hide behind data: because they're personally invested in their decisions and actually demonstrate that they're in control with their hands on the steering wheel of their organizational unit (be it team or department or facility or company). 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.
• buboard 8y ago
  But but, you have to be ideologically invested in everything you do. and you have to fight those barbaric sitters!
• narag 8y ago
  You are right about standing and so many other things. The problem :) with open offices thouhgh is that noise is not a like/dislike thing. You can't choose whether you can concentrate in a noisy envirnoment or not. And oh, you are not offered to choose between open office or not. Some guy decided it and imposed it to you.
  • asdff 8y ago
    You are the one signing to an open office job, after all.
    • Tempest1981 8y ago
      Although during the interview, how do you assess just how noisy the open office is going to be? The interviewer will likely say, "it's not very noisy".
    • narag 8y ago
      Actually no, I'm not. In most of the times I've been in such places, it was after the company moving.
• choot 8y ago
  I like laying in bed with comfy blanket and air-conditioner with temperature set to simulate Swiss winter while working. 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.
  • asdff 8y ago
    > maybe there is some evolutionary reason behind this. This mechanism for which you speak is known as "placebo"
• kaizendad 8y ago
  Standing desks can be amazing for those of us who tend to sit like we're misbehaving second-graders. When I sit down, I rarely have 2 feet on the floor, I slouch not just forward but left or right, I spin in my chair... if there were a nun standing behind me, she'd whack me with a yardstick. 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.
  • bcruddy 8y ago
    I love my standing desk for these reasons. The tailor that did my wedding tux last year also commented on my posture being near perfect. I attribute it wholly (maybe inaccurately) to using a standing desk (and standing most of the day) for the last three years. 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.
    • kaizendad 8y ago
      So true on the "afternoon drowsiness" thing! I hadn't thought of that. 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.
  • throwawaywhynot 8y ago
    I think fidgeting is a lot healthier than sitting in the same position for extended periods of time
• deleted 8y ago
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