[tzs]

The article he cites on the dangers of prolonged sitting is about research on prolonged sitting. That is indeed bad for you.

However, so is prolonged standing.

You are best off, and you can save $22, by keeping your normal desk and GETTING UP every 20 minutes or so and moving around. This avoids the problems with prolonged sitting, without incurring the serious risks of prolonged standing.

See: http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

[abossy]

Nobody I know is capable of standing for an entire workday. A drafting stool is absolutely required, and it's often the trickiest part of the configuration; for men taller than six feet, it's very difficult to find an inexpensive drafting stool that is sufficiently tall to match the height of your desk.

[1] e.g., http://www.amazon.com/Boss-Drafting-Stool-Foot-Black/dp/B001...

[bpbp-mango]

> Nobody I know is capable of standing for an entire workday.

I used to work in a supermarket and would stand for nearly the entire day apart from a short tea break and lunch break. All the other employees would too. It's not uncommon.

[kamaal]

That sort of standing is different than the way programmers work.

In what you describe, people walk around and do some physical activity all the time. That's totally different than the way programmers work.

We practically stand motionless for hours, with only eyes and fingers moving. That sorting of standing is difficult to do for prolonged working hours. And might be more harmful than sitting for long working hours.

[recursive]

I used to work in an assembly line in a factory. Other than the minimum legally mandated breaks, all the line workers stood in one place.

[crikli]

Ditto. I bartended a decade ago and my shifts started at 4:00PM and didn't end until an hour after close at 2:00AM. We were on our fee the entire time, with only smoke breaks where we weren't allowed to sit down.

[dawson]

Why weren't you allowed to sit down during cigarette breaks?

[crikli]

Man, I have no idea. They also didn't allow us to take a lunch break during what could be an 11 hour shift because, as one of the owners told me, people weren't clocking out during the 15 minutes it took to wolf down a burger and some cheese fries. I reminded them of labor laws and they made an "exception" for me.

This was, is, a very successful burger place in Dallas and I learned a ton fom the experience.

[dredmorbius]

Organize your co-workers to go after them for back wages and damages.

[baby]

I heard a lot about the security of supermarket that gets heavy back problem very early in their lives because they stand all day.

[codenerdz]

abossy, have you tried this drafting stool? Id love to hear somebodys feedback before spending $100 on a non-returnable furniture..

[ricardobeat]

Or puff + laptop.

[ricardobeat]

Getting up to move around every 20 minutes will quickly turn a 5-person office into a mess. Now imagine a space shared by 50 or 100 people. This is completely unrealistic.

[koeselitz]

Wait, I don't understand quite what you mean. People standing up frequently turns an office into a "mess"? How so?

I guess you must mean that it would disturb the other four people in the office if one of them got up every few minutes. But it seems as though that is down to office design, not how often one person happens to stand up. I worked in a 100-person office for about a year and a half. The floor had nice-sized desk cubicles. The whole time, I strictly maintained a schedule, getting up exactly every half hour to go on a two-minute walk. It never disturbed anybody as far as I know; I didn't make any noise, I made sre my chair wasn't squeaky, and I walked carefully without stomping.

I really feel as though, if you're in a situation where on person getting up disturbs the workflow of multiple other people, then you have an office design problem. It wouldn't even matter if people got up fifteen times a day or three - if they're disturbing others unnecessarily, then you need your office fixed to remove this disturbance.

In particular, please note that the approach of blaming the disturbances on the people getting up seems like a path to terrible management. If my bosses came to me to suggest that they'd rather I tried to stand up less often, I'd be a bit taken aback, and I'd probably reconsider where I chose to work.

[tptacek]

Is this supposed to matter? If it's important for human health to get up and walk around every 20 minutes, and not to stand all day, what do I care about the design of the space I'm in?

[jonhendry]

You can do some deep knee bends without leaving your cubicle. There's no need to run laps around the office every 20 minutes.

My concern is that you'd be breaking away from your task every 20 minutes, which isn't conducive to many kinds of work.