This article is more than 1 year old

You can’t sit there, my IoT desk tells me

I can’t stand up for falling down

Something for the Weekend, Sir? I don’t know what to do with my arse.

Should I be swivelling on it? Should I do it leaning forward with pressure applied to the small of my back? Or would I be better advised to do the business standing up?

For various reasons, I am in the market for a standing desk: that is, a desk that you can work at while standing upright instead of sitting down.

Years ago, I had an employee who suffered chronic back pain and found it more comfortable to work in a standing position. He also insisted that I don’t make a fuss or buy any fancy ergonomic furniture.

So I didn’t. I gave him a cardboard box.

He balanced his display, keyboard and mouse on top, and I bought some extra-long cables to reach the tower case on the floor. He was as pleased as punch.

Get up, stand up, I told him. Don’t give up the fight.

Youtube Video

At the time, I felt embarrassed how cheap I was, and even more so after several months when his box began to sag – oo-er missus – and I was forced to ask him if he wanted me to pick up a “new” one from the local supermarket.

However, looking back, I realise I was actually a pioneer of hipster chic. Ridiculous looking cardboard standing desks such as the Refold are all the rage now.

These are clever examples of engineering but are evidently designed for offices in which no one spills their drinks. Or maybe a cardboard desk isn’t wobbly. Yes, that’ll be it.

Nor are they cheap: for the price of one cardboard desk you can buy two veneered chipboard equivalents from Ikea. Evidently, cardboard doesn’t grow on trees. But then an unjustified overspend is all part of the hipster lifestyle, along with platinum-plated skateboard trucks and paperclips purchased by the Bitcoin.

Remember when I said I was in the market for a standing desk? I was being literal: companies are sending me unsolicited sales email about standing desks in the expectation that I want to buy one.

The problem is that I have no more desire to stand up all day than I have for balancing coffee mugs and recharging electronic devices on furniture that is, by definition, a water hazard and a fire hazard simultaneously.

At one time, I considered buying an Oristand, which is sort of a two-level pop-up desk riser and the logical successor to my employee’s supermarket box. I liked how you can fold it flat and slip it out of the way when you fancy working sitting down at normal desk height. The problem is that you have to clear your desk top before popping it back up again.

And therein lies the problem with all these clever standing desks, including those that raise and lower their height electronically. They are designed for clean, spacious, well-lit and uncluttered offices, and we know these don’t exist in real life, only in TV adverts and Kickstarter videos.

Speaking of which, take a look at this fundraiser project for Gaze Desk, a split-level desk with telescopic legs controlled by an app that nags you to stand up and sit down with irritating frequency, reminiscent of attending a church service but with less singing.

Worryingly, Gaze Desk is being developed to work with other IoT devices, and you know my opinion of these terrifying little buggers. The only thing worse than an office full of idiot IoT devices unable to talk to each other is an office full devious IoT devices that do talk to each other. What, you want them to gang up on you?

On the other hand, these self-adjusting rising desks are deceptively appealing – at least until you see how much they cost – and there’s a good reason for their appeal: the desk surfaces are almost entirely empty.

They are unreal. Compare this to what’s sitting on the desk in my home office:

Speaking of real desks, let me show you one I was told to work at when visiting a client not so long ago:

Lovely bit of faux leather on top, although I think it may have split a little. I especially appreciated the way the wooden drawer handles had long gone, making the drawers inaccessible to anyone unequipped with a pair of chisels.

At another client premises, I was allocated this glorious working space:

My sheer joy at being asked to work at a screen that was barely half the width of the keyboard – isn’t miniaturisation wonderful? – was tempered by the realisation that I would not have the freedom to stand up and walk around. In fact, I wasn’t sure I would have enough room for my elbows.

At another startup I visited, the company was keen to show off its Italian designer desks that had just been installed. However, for reasons that never became clear, the office manager didn’t think to order the same number of chairs to match. This meant half the staff had to stand up at their desks whether they wanted to or not.

This apparently prompted a panicky trip down to junk shops and house clearance auctions, which explains why I was offered this impressive example of office rump support from the pre-swivel era:

I accepted it with good grace, determined to make the best of it but eventually other members of staff asked me to stop writhing around like a lap-dancer while grunting “Ahh Jesus” every few seconds.

Luckily for me, a lunchtime stroll led me to stumble across a nearby business that just happened to be in the process of chucking out its old furniture. There it all was, lined up along the pavement, complete with descriptions.

Did they have a free typist’s chair? Or a free executive chair? Not quite, but they did have this:

The sign reads “FREE FUCKING CHAIR” although I was at pains to spot any obvious evidence that it had ever been used for this particular application.

Great, just what I need: a Regency Fornication Seat to accompany an IoT-enabled stand-up-sit-down desk intent on destroying all mankind.

I can picture myself now, frantically fighting to get a task completed before deadline, just as the desk decides it’s time I get up on my feet for a bit. It relentlessly rises up while splitting into seven levels, spilling coffee over my keyboard, sprinkling stationery onto the floor, folding the angle lamp down so that it singes my face, and forcefully tearing the cables out the back of my computer one by one with loud pops.

Just as long as it comes with a beer cooler, I’m fine.

Youtube Video

Alistair DabbsAlistair Dabbs is a freelance technology tart, juggling IT journalism, editorial training and digital publishing. As someone in a mostly sedentary occupation, he has grown a bit porky over the last few years. However, he believes that he may be able to stand up without the assistance of an app to tell him how to do it.

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like