Office Is The Devil

How many people work in an office? Millions? Hundreds of millions? Let's just say, a lot.

For the past 18.5 months I have had the privelege of working in an office. It's my first office job, and I tell ya, it may be my last if something doesn't change very soon. Unless you are manager of an office and have reason to be humming about and constantly on your feet, the office can definitely become a downward spiral to poor health.

I for one am not management. I'm a drone. I do production work. I work to make management money. And for that, I feel I am paying the ultimate price. I am not going to go on about any positive reasons for working in an office, because frankly, I can't think of one at the moment. Here, however, are some reason why working in an office is slowly destroying, well, me. Both physically and mentally.

First off, I am a designer. And every chance I get to pick up a pencil and get my eyes away from a computer screen I snatch up in a second. Unfortunately the computer screen is where my most covented natural sense, sight, spends 80-90% of the day. Now, my eyesight is currently pretty darn good. I have never had a problem. But I look around the office and I see some people sitting NO FURTHER than 6-8 inches from their screens. SIX TO EIGHT INCHES. Frigg, they might as well give it a kiss they're so close. Let's do a test. Hold your finger at arm's length and slowly bring it towards your nose, following it with your eyes. Notice that the closer your finger comes, the more eyestrain you feel. It's because your eyes need to both accommodate and converge. Accommodation is when the eyes change focus to look at something close. Convergence is when the eyes turn inward towards the nose to prevent double vision, and THEY SAY that you should sit no closer than 20-25" from the computer screen. Fuck the mumbo jump technical bullshit, I want to know why some people need to sit so damn close? There is absolutely no benefit what-so-ever to sitting 6-inches from your computer screen. If I extend my arm out, my computer screen is about 3-4 inches FURTHER thant he length of my arm. If you can't read what is on your screen at 15-inches, GET SOME FUCKING GLASSES! You're only making it worse.

Ok, now on to reason number two for why working in an office is my downward spiral. My posture. This is different for everyone, so let me explain to you how it affects me. Our whole lives we constaly hear, "Sit up straight! Stop slouching!".... Well I tell ya, sitting at a computer for 10+ hours a day, I find it very hard to not slouch. Maybe it's just me, but who cares. This post is about me. Anyway, I finally decided to try something new. I got my boss to purchase me one of those large exercise balls, you know the ones. Anyway, I currently still use it, but only for about half of the day. The ball is supposed to force you to sit up straight and better your posture, but I tell ya, whether I use the ball or the chair, I now have a slight back ache for a majority of th time. I can't shake it. I sit on the ball for 3-4 hours, then switch to the chair. Sometimes I sit on the ball all day, which is hard though, as my back gets more tired. Maybe I'm already deformed and now sitting straight will take a lifetime to achieve. All I know is, my brother has mild Scoliosis and therefore has had back pains for a majority of his life. I feel for him now that I have pains... from my office.

Another reason why I switched to the exercise ball is an odd one. One I would have never expected, and I am curious to know if this happens to anyone else. The elbow of my left sleeve, on ALL of my clothes with long sleeves, is wearing a hole straight through. When typing or sitting at the computer in general, I rest my elbows on the arms of the chair. My right hand uses the mouse as well, so it has legitimite reason to move away from the chair arm. But my left elbow, nope. It's constantly holding it's place, and after a while, a hole will wear straight through my clothes. Almost EVERY single long sleeve shirt I have has a hole in the left sleeve. I know some people wear t-shirts to the office, and I think I understand why. But I'm not much a t-shirt wearer when it's not summertime. So WTF!!! I'm ruining my clothes working in this devlish hole.

Finally, because I don't feel like typing anymore, I'm tired. I'm tired 24 hours a day, seven days a week. BUT HOW? I sit motionless all day! Fuck, I absolutely hate feeling tired all the time. Over the Christmas holidays I took 10 days off and went home to visit my family. I was SO refreshed and energized because I was waking up naturally. The unnatural wakeups every morning are killing me. And if you don't know what I mean by an unnatural wakeup, I mean, being woken up by an alarm and not allowing the body to awake on it's own attire. Sleep comes in phases, and for a majority of people, the phase of "deep sleep" is usually when they are awoken by their alarm. In this phase, the body is in deep sleep, and waking up immediately from it, means you're going to be groggy and moody. I've tried a couple of methods of sleeping. The best thing I find is to not have a blasting alarm wake me up, but simply turn my alarm to a reasonable volume, but not loud. My body still hears it, and I don't wake up with a suddent "Is it the apocolypse??" kind of spark.

By the way, as a final note.... For a while now I have had a problem with my right hand becoming tense and sore from using a mouse. Something called Tendonitis felt like it was kicking in. I got my hands on a Logitech Trackman. It worked out well at first, but let me give an update. Clicking with my thumb is awesome. My pointer finger feels no pain what-so-ever now (I can no longer use a nermal generic mouse as my pointer finger will hurt within minutes of useage). HOWEVER, now my middle finger and ring finger are starting to strain. They manipulate the trackball of the mouse. Like, WTF... actually, I think it might have something do with my typing as well, as I do not always use correct hand layout on the keyboard. In fact, on my right hand I only use my pointer and middle finger to type. Thats just the way that came natural to me.

Ok, final reason for real. My office truly is the Devil's hole because.... it's SO fucking hot in here. My word. If it were socially acceptable I'd be stripping right down in here. It's like 80 million degrees. We've always got new people starting, and new people mean more computers running. I seriously have a full size fan running beside me the whole day.

var Temp = office temperature + body heat var eyeStrain = 10 hours of monitor viewing/day var Stress = multitasking

var Headache = Temp + eyeSrain + Stress

If (Temp >= 80 million degrees) {
Miserable = Headache + Pain;
}
document.write('I am ' , 'Miserable' , '!');

Anyway, I don't feel like typing anymore, I need to get outside for some air.