Taking care of me

Today is “Taking Care of U” day at CBC - a “wellness fair” where employees can check out exhibits and take classes on stress reduction, health, nutrition, etc. I’ll probably drop by (but I’m eating a bowl of Smarties ice cream as I write this.)

Anyhow, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to update you on my ongoing battle with “internet elbow.”

I first brought this up almost a year ago in a piece called More worn-out elbows. I had discovered that many of my shirts had developed holes in the left elbow, and I attributed it to computer use, and leaning my non-mouse arm on the desk. There wasn’t anything on the internet about it, and in fact one of my commenters used that post to coin the term “internet elbow”. The word has since found some currency.

It seems plenty of people have this problem; solutions range from elbow patches to rolling up your sleeves to using a stack of napkins (suggested this week by Darren.)

But none of those solutions get to the root of the problems, which is bad posture/bad desk layout. In May I had a visit from the official CBC ergonomist, who analyzed my desk and agreed that the posture of leaning forward into the crook of an L-shaped workstation was probably at the root of the problem (as well as that crick in my neck.) I wrote up those results in an entry called Fixing the ‘Internet Elbow’.

Well, to their great credit, the folks at CBC took my issue seriously, and fixed it.

Here’s how it was laid out before - CRT monitor back in the corner, so I leaned forward on my non-adjustable chair:

I was able to acquire an LCD monitor, and a new chair with many more adjustment features (including the arms.) This let me face the computer on the flat part of the desk, and sit properly with my arms resting on the armrests, not the desk:

So far, so good! No new holes in my shirts (though it has been mostly T-shirt weather…) and more importantly, my neck and back feel much better. And I’m pleased to say that it looks like a more ergonomic layout is coming for my colleagues too - when we move into new offices this winter, the workstations will likely feature adjustable, curved corner keyboard trays and flat panel monitors.

So, on wellness day, I must tip my hat to my employer for taking my posture seriously. I know that not everyone out there will be able to convince their boss to shell out $500 for a chair and $300 for a screen. But considering I had the last chair for 10 years and the last screen for five, it isn’t a massive investment in the long run (it’s probably about .2 per cent of my salary over that period.)

That’s a bargain, really - one U.K. study suggested that more than 4 million working days were lost each year to work-related musculoskeletal disorders. In the U.S., one half of all working Americans report back pain symptoms each year - it’s the number one cause of missed work, and second only to respiratory infections in doctor visits.

And have you seen the cost of elbow patches these days? (Actually, has anyone even seen an elbow patch these days?) Maybe the napkins aren’t such a bad idea.

Posted by: Paul Gorbould | 09-26-2007 | 12:09 AM
Posted in: Teh Internets