Ergonomics Pro Needed to Banish Office Pain.

Do you need to hire an ergonomics professional to reduce outbreaks of aching backs and carpal tunnel in your office? Do you need to take the ergonomic bull by the horns?

Science says yes - according to Dr. Jasminka Goldoni Laestadius from the World Bank's Joint Bank/Fund Health Services Department,

"Just providing new office furniture and written instructions is not sufficient to achieve proper accommodation," Laestadius' paper reads. "Good office equipment is a poor substitute for good working positions."

The study was conceived when the World Bank workforce moved headquarters - an excellent opportunity for Laestadius' team to study how proactive ergonomics could improve employee health.

The employees were divided into two groups - one simply got new ergonomic office furniture, together with the manuals to set them up and no more. The other received new furniture and information, plus personalized attention from an ergonomics professional.

The second group was found to experience less musculoskeletal pain and eyestrain, with a corresponding jump in productivity. "Better postures meant less pain," the paper concludes. "This verifies our experience that equipment such as an adjustable chair does not add value unless properly adjusted."

The study was published in the October issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

(If your office could stand a World Bank-grade ergonomics upgrade, consider checking out Cubicles.com's selection of ergonomic chairs. Unfortunately, professional ergonomist not included.)

Is the future looking up for office furniture industry?

A qualified yes, says industry analyst Michael Dunlap.

A survey of executives at key furniture makers and suppliers registered a 51.45 quarterly office index as of October, the best result since July 2008.

Out of 10 measures, eight show an upbeat trend - these include shipments, new product development, and capital expenditures. A few job-related sectors are still below 50 (although showing a trend towards improvement) - employment, hours worked, per-employee costs and personal outlook.

For Dunlap, a noted industry analyst, this snapshot of the furniture business shows an improving business climate. "More than 42 percent reported they are optimistic about the future. It was only 25 percent in April," said Dunlap, the principal in Michael A. Dunlap & Associates LLC, which conducted the survey.

The October survey indicates the industry likely bottomed out on the second quarter, Michael Dunlap said.

"The continued increases in shipment, orders, and others factors during the third quarter suggest that we have passed into a new stage of recovery," Dunlap predicted. "There may be some bumps ahead in the road, because this recovery is going very slowly."

True that - the latest results from the Federal Reserve's survey of economic conditions nationwide show furniture companies in St. Louis and Philadelphia suffering from lowered demands and closing plants.

In other words - still rough going, but the furniture industry looks like it's turned the corner!

Cool Vespas Resurrected as Office Chairs.

Image © Bel & Bel.

Office furniture that's been around the block doesn't usually generate a lot of consumer demand. But what about office furniture that's been recycled from classic scooters?

Watch out for Spanish design house Bel & Bel's new creations in your local cubicle farm: super-classy hand-made leather office chairs, made primarily from Italian Vespa scooters. The Vespa's front shield creates a perfect silhouette for an office chair back rest - combined with a few key spare parts, these make office chairs that make an incredible visual impact.

Also, given the variety of colors that old Vespas came in, you'll probably find a Vespa chair that suits your office, no problem.

In the old days, Vespa scooters were a symbol of carefree Continental lifestyles, immortalized in movies from the Sixties. But the Vespa's air-cooled two-stroke engine is dirty and bad for the environment; the proliferation of cheap two-stroke cycles around the world accounts for much of the air pollution in developing countries.

"In the cities of many developing countries, the pollution is horrific," says acting director of the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California at Davis Daniel Sperling. "Two-stroke engines are a big part of the problem."

But Vespa is still tres cool for so many retro-maniacs. Sure, old Vespas kill the Earth a little for every mile they run, but that's no reason to hate them completely, right? So Bel y Bel made the leap from Vespa scooters to office furniture - rejuvenating Vespa retro cool and rehabilitating its polluting former life at the same time.

Office Furniture: Re-used or Remanufactured?

Office furniture being the expensive, long-term investment that it is, it behooves you to figure out how you can get the biggest bang for your office buck.

Brand new office furniture might burn you in more ways than one - you might end up paying top dollar for chairs, desks and cubicles that just won't get the kind of use that justifies the expense. (Especially during these parlous economic times.) When your big operation cuts its workforce, what are you going to do with all that extra office furniture?

Consider alternative number one: used office furniture. With office closures being far too common these days, it's a buyers' market for used office furniture: barely used, and much cheaper than their brand new counterparts.

How much should you expect to pay for used office furniture? It depends on what's available, and how much of it you need. Of course, quality will be highly variable, and you can't expect to get exactly the color or make you want.

Now consider alternative number two: remanufactured office furniture. What's the difference? Remanufactured office furniture comes from previously-used office furniture, but put through a remanufacturing process that strips off the old surfaces, refurbishes the structure, and refinishes the surface so the whole thing looks practically brand new - despite prices that may be up to 80% cheaper than comparable brand new furniture!

Recycling Becomes Remembering - Steel from Ground Zero Becomes Part of New Warship.

Image courtesy of the US Navy; public domain.

Sometimes recycling isn't just about being kind to the earth - it's about sanctifying recent history.

Case in point - the USS New York, a San Antonio-class amphibious transport. More than seven tons of steel in its bow stem comes from scrap recycled from the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero, the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

In the wake of the September attacks, New York Governor George E. Pataki requested that the Navy name one of its ships USS New York, to commemorate the victims of the tragedy.

Cubicle Farms Making Way for Apartments?

We saw this happen in Soho - a run-down work area is transformed into a hip residential community. Of course, this happened after a long process involving penniless bohemians, urban gentrification, and soaring real estate prices. Could it happen again to recession-hit office cubicle blocks?

It just might - office vacancies are rising to 13 percent in Manhattan alone; pricey office towers are losing tenants fast, and older office buildings are facing a crunch they just might never pull out of.

In New York, ground zero for the recession is putting its toe in the residential water; the New York headquarters of the American International Group (AIG) at 70 Pine Street will undergo a transformation at the hands of developer Young Woo, who plans to split the building's 66 stories between condos on the top floors and commercial establishments on the lower floors.

Junk Mail - Green (Environment) or Green (Money)?

The era of the green office was supposed to bring us more eco-friendly business processes, recycled office furnishings, and smaller footprints overall. But we've yet to find a way to integrate junk mail into the era of the green workplace.

Junk mail is a paradox - more than 40% of junk mail is thrown away unopened, but without junk mail, we'd never be able to afford postal service. Take it from the Postmaster General of the US Postal Service, John Potter -

"Somehow, they think a sale offer coming through the mail — as opposed to a newspaper, a magazine, TV, radio or the Internet — is a bad thing. Ads pay for the Internet, as well as broadcast TV and radio programs," [Potter] said during a speech at the National Press Club. "So, too, ad mail helps pay for universal mail service in America."

Special Seating Deal this October!

Forget about ghosts and goblins this Halloween. You know what's really scary? Lumbar pains, especially when they strike the executive workforce.

If you're the guy who made the decision to buy the chairs in the office, the suits will blame you for their lowered productivity and increased suffering. Luckily, there's a way to correct the situation.

For the month of October, Cubicles.com is offering Offices to Go's Leather Executive Seating solution for the special price of $199! (Originally $239).

Ergonomic About-Face for New Apple Patent.

The ergonomic thingamajig that Apple submitted for patent is turning out to be the last thing Apple fan-boys would ever guess it to be: a multitouch mouse cum keyboard gadget. Just what your office cubicle needed - another expensive way to get carpal tunnel, from your friends at Apple!

Seriously, the patent (long believed by Apple true believers to be a new tablet computer) is just another way of getting data into existing Apple computers; not as sexy, but just as useful.

Turns out that input with a stylus, keyboard, or mouse can be duplicated with the right kind of touch-sensitive technology - an insight that Apple seems to have glommed onto with its new patent.

The patent application, filed by Morrison and Foerster LLP, describes a hand-based system that permits "unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device," reports the AppleInsider blog.

October is National Ergonomics Month!

Since 2003, October has been celebrated as National Ergonomics Month (NEM), since being designated by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES). NEM is intended to promote ergonomics issues to executives, students, and the general public, by spreading information and services to the community.

This year's slogan for NEM is "A Time for Teaching, Learning, Networking, Service, and Fun!" Because we all know that ergonomics is a barrel of laughs. Seriously, I'm surprised nobody's discovered the comedy potential of carpal tunnel syndrome, I'm smiling just thinking about it.

October really serves as a kick-off month for National Ergonomics Month's outreach activities. Ergonomics boosters use NEM to make presentations at schools and offices.

The list of upcoming events can be viewed at the HFES website. For example, Georgia Tech is sponsoring a Bad Design contest that highlights bad design on campus, and proposes fixes to each bad design. Ditto with the University of Illinois, which has a Bad Design contest of its own.