How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Stand Up Desk

Once upon a time I had a stand up desk, and I hated it. It’s the vegetables of office furniture. And I know what you’re thinking: “But I like vegetables!” Yeah, me too, but you’re ruining the metaphor. So anyways, before you interrupted, I bought myself a very tall chair so that I could sit at my stand up desk. Take that vegetables! But then I couldn’t touch the ground, so my extra-tall, wheeled chair would send me rocketing off in the opposite direction whenever I hopped on, or touched something. Like my desk for instance. My own little rendition of life in space.

So mostly I would still stand at my stand up desk. But I didn’t enjoy it. So how did one little medium sized word change that forever? How did I learn to love my stand up desk? Here we go. Are you ready for it? It’s called Sciatica. Say it with me now: psye-attic-uhh. It all started with a slipped disc in my back, which led to a pinched nerve in my leg. But here’s the cool thing about sciatica: Nothing it’s awful. Awful. No matter how you move, your whole leg hurts. No matter how you stand, your whole leg hurts. And you can’t sit down, oh no, that makes it 10 times worse. Only standing. Laying down may be ok too… But no sitting!

Now I don’t know how much work you can get done while fully horizontal, and I understand that there are some professions where it is acceptable or perhaps even required, professional mattress testers for instance. I however find that it is far to conducive to spilling my coffee on myself, and naps. They go hand in hand you know, each one feeding off the last, building up the next. So stand I shall.

That’s it really. It’s just a slipped disc somehow causing both horrendous pain and numbness down the lion’s share of my left leg. It doesn’t have to be your left leg of course. It could be your right leg. Or if you have more, possibly one of your other legs. I wouldn’t presume the typical leg count in your neighborhood. I’ve seen a cow with 6, and a dog with 3. My point is that you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and necessity is the mother of vegetables.

Anyway, Stand-Up Desks!