Friday, May 20, 2011

It looks like office workers are risking their lives after all

One of my favorite things about working in an office is that no one's life is dependent upon my work skills or ability to show up at exactly 8 a.m. every day. Even better, I don't have to jump through rings of fire or perform heroic, risky deeds to fulfill my job requirements. Yeah, my work is important, but it can work around me, my schedule, and my moods most of the time. I think that's awesome.

I keep coming across this article that amuses me somewhat. The title pretty much says it all: "Don't forget! Your computer job is still killing you"--though if you don't read it, you'll be missing out on some pretty cool graphics.

The article basically says this: humans weren't built to spend less time sleeping than they do sitting, so office workers can pretty much kiss their longevity good-bye.

Now I'm a little paranoid. I'm thinking about purposely leaving my cool water bottle at home from now on so that I'll be forced to walk down the hall and through the door once every hour or so when I need a drink of water. I'm not one to get up and talk to people about, well, pretty much anything, so this may be my only hope.

In my defense though, I am a very active sitter. I am incapable of sitting still: if my chair swivels, you can be certain I will be swiveling fairly constantly; I am one of those annoying foot tappers/leg shakers; I change positions every fifteen minutes or so because staying in one position for a long time is boring and sometimes painful; and my fingers are constantly in motion, whether I'm typing, fingerspelling, playing with my hair, or plunking the imaginary keys of the piano in the air next to me. (Excellent. I have just created a legitimate precursor for an awesome movie quote follow-up: "That's a weird place to put a piano . . ."

But I'm thinking my jitteryness isn't going to save me here. I guess all jobs are life-threatening in the end. Oh well. At least I'll be well rested.

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