Stand Up
a short story
They took away my desk today. I mean, I still have a desk, but they took away my desk and gave me this thing I'm using now while writing this.
The desk was this great old-fashioned wooden contraption like Wall Street guys have in their studies in the Hamptons where they go for brandy and cigars to talk about how the poor should all get dumped in the ocean so they can split their pension funds. Actually, if they had pension funds they wouldn't be that poor, so maybe…oh, whatever. It was a great desk, with some leather inlaid into the top and drawers with brass handles. It made me feel like a real working man. Well, not the kind of working man who goes down the mine or ends up lifting hods of bricks on a construction site. It made me feel like a white-collar man. Which is still manly. It is. Don't make that face.
Head Office sent a memo around letting us all know that our Health & Safety Officer had finished an inspection and accompanying report. My health has been fine and I've been safe the whole time I've worked here, but whatever. Nobody asked me whether I was healthy and safe. The Health & Safety Officer probably just walked around with a clipboard until the bosses took lunch and then went to the toilet for an apple and a five-knuckle-shuffle. How funny would it be if the Health & Safety Officer of a major corporation was found dead in a toilet cubicle with a half-chewed apple going brown in his mouth and a fistful of failing hard-on? Well, I think it would be funny. Nobody asked you. Whatever.
The Health & Safety Officer had found during his inspection that we were apparently suffering from an epidemic of bad backs and spreading waistlines. His recommendation was that we should all work standing up from now on. What a crank. I'm sure my health problems (non-existent though they might be) are caused by sitting in a comfortable chair and not by having to get up at seven in the morning, sit in a car for forty-five minutes while swearing in traffic and feeling that vein under my eye bulge out, then make small talk with people I have nothing in common with around a percolator serving up terrible piss-weak coffee before shuffling over to a desk where I trade hours upon hours of my life for money I only need to pay for the house I need to live in to be close enough to the job I have to do for the money I only need for the…forget it. You get the point. I'm sure it was the desk, is what I'm saying. I'm sure the rest of it is totally normal and healthy and safe but the sitting down at the desk is what was going to break this donkey's back.
So how do we work standing up when there are computers and printers and memo pads and mouse mats and all manner of things that need to be within reach at arm level? Do we buy some Minority Report technology wall where I just wear a glove and a headset and walk around like Tom Cruise waving and speaking to a super-intelligent computer? Hell no. Obviously the solution is to buy taller desks so that we stand at them instead of sitting at them. Being in one place all day for hours performing a repetitive, unrewarding, non-essential task that in no way uses my clearly overflowing creativity is totally healthy and safe. It's the height of the desk and the horizontal/vertical orientation of my ass that makes the difference. Head Office were over the freaking moon with this guy and his stupid report. They shelled out God-knows-how-much for not just the thing I'm standing at right now but things for everybody. I could have made myself one, dirt cheap, out of office supplies and old boxes of toner, but they bought these fancy electric-motored metal objects that look like insects waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting former lover. Mantises, in case you were wondering. I watch a lot of Discovery.
They plonk my thing down in front of me and mmmnmnneee goes the sound of the electric motor as it raises the tabletop to the correct level for a man of my height.
“Arms parallel to the floor while typing,” the maintenance guy said, before he slouched off in his blue boiler suit to do the same thing another few dozen times for other people who didn't want it to happen. He might have a repetitive, unrewarding task but at least it's essential and he gets to move around. I bet he doesn't even have a desk. Just a walkie-talkie and a locker for his street clothes, which are probably better than mine. I've always noticed that maintenance guys make more of an effort than I do when off-duty. It must be a blue-collar thing; they like to dress up nice when they're off work. I have to wear a tie and shirt sleeves when I’m on the clock, so I can't wait to change into flip flops and bermudas. The grass is always greener, right?
Anyway, back to the thing. Like a mantis, crouched in front of me, all shiny and white with the faux-wood plank that is my new desk. Bye bye stylish Wall Street study desk. Hello standing torture platform.
I can already feel my shoulders tensing up and my lower back clenching. Shifting from foot to foot is no good. I'm stuck here without even the faint smell of well-worn leather and a fluffy back-support cushion for comfort. The horror.
Head Office circulated a memo to tell us all that they were congratulating the Health & Safety Officer for his insight. Apparently productivity has gone off the chart since they made us all stand up. Sick days have gone down. Maybe I'll come in one morning and the coffee will be better, or even drinkable. Who knows?
What was their way of thanking the Health & Safety Officer? They gave him a spa weekend. He gets to knock off early on Friday, drive up to the mountains and sit in a hot tub for two nights drinking champagne and watching soft core porno. Maybe he'll get a massage or a facial. Those people work standing up too. I bet they like it though. I don't. Man, I could smash this keyboard through the monitor. My back is on fire. They're going to make me healthy and safe even if it kills me. Meanwhile, that turncoat gets a fresh bathrobe and a steak dinner served by a college student with great teeth, perfect tits and a future. I hope he chokes on his steak or dies of a heart attack in the hot tub.
That would be ironic.
