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- Is Your Desk Trying to Kill You?
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- Merle Kessler
A new study reveals that a messy desk can make you sick. Ian examines his own desk/health ratio, and reaches some conclusions.
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Piece Description
A new study reveals that a messy desk can make you sick. Ian examines his own desk/health ratio, and reaches some conclusions.
2 Comments
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Review of Is Your Desk Trying to Kill You?I laughed out loud listening to this. I was just agonizing in my head about the piles and piles of dishes in my sink when this piece found it's way into my headphones. I totally feel you, Ian. |
Transcript
So there’s this British company called Analysts with Open Ergonomics. Before I go on, can somebody tell me, is ergonomics a real science, or one of those made up things like mesmerism, phrenology, and behaviorism? If it is a science, what is it a study of? How people sit? It sounds to me like a scam by furniture makers to make us buy Ikea.
Whatever they are, the Analysts with Open Ergonomics conducted a study—excuse me again, but what does “Open Ergonomics” mean? Are there “Closed Ergonomics?” “Ajar Ergonomics?”
Anyway, they conducted a study for NEC-Mitsubishi, which came to the conclusion that messy desks can make workers sick. They gave this phenemenon a name: Irritable Desk Syndrome. Kind of like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, only there’s a lot of paper involved, and there’s no purple pill.
Among their findings: forty percent of those surveyed said they were infuriat...
Read the full transcript
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Eric Brotman
Posted on April 19, 2005 at 12:54 PM | Permalink
Review of Is Your Desk Trying to Kill You?
It's a measure of Ian's talent as a humorist that he can get laughs out of a subject as mundane as a study of the effects desks have on our health. This is a commentary virtually everyone who works behind a desk can appreciate. He also has performed a service by lampooning scientific studies filled with jargon and an absurd seriousness that people often accept as given--- until someone like Ian prompts us to consider them from a different perspective. Added to all of that is a pretty funny exit line.