Local Engineer Refuses To Work Without A Standing Desk
POTRERO HILL, SAN FRANCISCO — Local engineer Samuel Feynman has reportedly refused to work unless “they replace this crappy desk they gave me with a proper standing desk.”
Mr. Feynman, 26, had packed up his possessions last Friday in preparation for an office move at his company. This morning, he had arrived at the office around 11 AM to find that his monitor, dev machine, and moving boxes were now on top of a normal “sitting” desk.
Mr. Feynman initially thought that the weekend moving crew had made some mistake, but his consternation soon turned into indignant, privileged rage. “They’re treating us like animals! Seriously, what is this? Amazon?” he seethed to anyone who would listen. “The next time we move, I bet they’re going to make me assemble my own desk out of a door and some planks!”
“There’s so much research out there saying that sitting is the new smoking. It is bad for my health to be sitting down and staring at a computer screen,” complained Mr. Feynman, who had now found the unfortunate office manager. “I don’t feel like this is an unreasonable request. My previous standing desk had those motorized controls for going up and down, and right now I would even settle for a crank operated one. It’s not like I asked for a treadmill desk, which is what I really wanted. If I have to work at this desk and I get carpal tunnel, I’m claiming disability on it, you hear?”
After some time, Mr. Feynman shifted topics to the open office layout their company had adopted, being prohibited from using pre-tax commuter benefits on the Uber X’s that he takes to work, and the overly long lines to eat the company’s free gourmet lunch, which he compared to “bread lines in Soviet Russia.”
At press time, Mr. Feynman had decided to leave the office and go to the company’s gym, telling his manager that he would return “when the working conditions are humane.”
