Friday, October 24, 2008

Work Can Be a Pain—Literally

This is how my neck has been feeling by the end of the day.

Photo source: Juvenile Brain Trust

I think that both of my readers have noticed an increase in the number of typos in my recent posts and that they are running late. As you might have guessed from what I’ve been writing about, I have been busy as all getout lately. Not much time for blogging, and when I have been home to blog, I have been in pain and not felt like touching a keyboard. 

Luckily, my iPhone has enabled me to do a bit of catching up during lulls at other activities. Then it doesn’t take a whole lot to clean up the posts to a point where I feel comfortable publishing them when I eventually get to them. As I am writing this, there are three prior posts in the queue waiting to be cleaned up.

So the busy explains the delay, and the iPhone explains how I have been able to post at all. Now I’ll explain the pain.

I love my new job and my new cubicle. The desk is one of the most comfortable I have ever used. The problem I have is that the computer at my new cubicle is not designed for people who wear bifocals. It is sleek and sexy, but hardly ergonomic—no way to adjust the height of the integrated display, which is fixed at about six inches above the desk surface. It does tilt a bit, but that still leaves me tilting my head back to see the upper two-thirds of the display. And I have had to sit like that for hours on end—one of the pitfalls of writing for a living.

The constant pain has been making me very grumpy. Suna has thought that I have been upset with her, but I have not. I’ve just been hurting. When I woke up yesterday, I couldn’t move without whining until I stood in the hot shower for a half hour.

When I came in this morning, the guys from facilities had already lowered my desk the two inches suggested by an ergonomic survey. That’s a bit low for comfortable typing, but I can see the whole display by moving my head minimally. And I think that much motion is good for my neck.

I feel better after only one day. Maybe the old me will be back soon.

3 comments:

Dragonfly7673 (Vicki) said...

I hope you feel better soon! Nothing is worse than neck and back pain.

Lee said...

Thanks. The new desk height seems to have made a big difference. That and not having to look at the display so much the last few days.

Lee said...

After a week with the new desk height, I can say I am almost pain free. Another few days should do it.

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