The back massage I had just before the new year started did make an improvement in my overall level of pain. Since the therapist pointed out that my upper back is suffering from years of cubical living at work, I have taken some steps to alter the way I sit at my workstation.
Chair Unfortunately I don’t have the option of getting a new chair. The one I currently have is reasonably good, with adjustments for seat height, arm rest height, reclining or locked, and seat back angle. In order to create a baseline, so that I can tell which adjustment or adjustments makes a difference I have raised the seat height slightly, maybe an inch, to effectively lower the height of the work surface. I’ve also locked the seat back into the upright position and lowered the arm rests.
Desk The desks at my current engagement, are all corner models, suspended from cubical walls. In a nod towards ergonomics they have an adjustable keyboard tray in the corner of the desk’s “el.” Since the mechanism that allows this tray to be adjusted is flexible I have never liked it - the whole thing vibrates as I type. Also, the supports that tie the tray into the articulated arm are at a perfect width to smack into my knees if the tray is much lower than the height of the desk top. The tray is barely wide enough to hold the keyboard and the mouse. Like I said, the tray is only a nod towards ergonomics. I’ve lowered the keyboard tray as far as I can without smacking my knees.
All of these adjustments have dropped my hands two or three inches from where they were previously. My goal is to keep this arrangement for a week or so, and then change one and only one parameter, working my way around all the parameters eventually, in order to see what setting feels the best and causes the least amount of tension in my upper back by the end of the day. Maybe someday I’ll be fortunate enough to work at a company that has a good ergonomics understanding and works with their employees to prevent chronic conditions like my back.
Life being what it is, there are times when the plethora of choices, options, and decisions to be made can overwhelm. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have options, to have more good than you can use at once. But it can also wear you down. Leaving options on the table, recognizing that not everything that was possible is possible can leave you drained.
That’s when you need to stay home and refold undies. Or collect navel lint, or star gaze, or whatever you do when the information abundance era threatens to overwhelm.
For me it is watching, or at least playing, favorite movies. Ones I’ve seen again and again but still enjoy. Since it isn’t new, since it is a known quantity, I can participate without active focus. The minimal level of concentration required is just enough to clear my head of all the noise my options, choices, decisions have generated. It provides the necessary downtime to recharge my batteries.
How do you refold your undies?
Not so much a resolution, but a determination that we’d like to walk more days than not each week this year resulting in a beautiful walking in the brisk sunshine of a new day, new month, and new year this morning.
For the past several months I have been dealing with intermittent lower back pain. Some days it hurts, some days it’s hard to even notice, and some days it is debilitating in a I-need-four-Motrin-to-move-way. I kept trying to pinpoint a cause and therefore, hopefully, a cure.
This past weekend I decided to try a massage therapist. His theory on why my lower back hurts starts in my neck. And continues through my upper back. As a cubical dweller at work, I sit for hours a day with my arms raised - basically tensing the muscles in my upper back. Twenty plus years of this torture have resulted in some adhesions or scar tissues between the layered muscles of my back. When one muscle was over taxed its neighbors would take up the slack resulting in multiple adhesions that have basically glued my upper back into one large muscle.
A late summer groin pull may have been the proverbial straw, causing compensation injuries to my lower back. With the upper region already damaged from years of sitting at desks that were too high or too low, the sudden extra load on my lower back had no where else to go. The chronic upper back situation was enough to turn what should have been only an acute lower back ache into persistent, chronic lower back pain.
The hour-long massage helped to loosen my entire back considerably. In fact today my lower back doesn’t hurt at all. The rhombus muscles in my mid to upper back are quite sore however, as these where the ones he worked on the most. The therapist warned me that I would feel worse for a day or two before getting some relief. Repeated sessions will be required to fully break up the numerous, and quite large, areas of scar tissue in my back.
I’ll also be investigating ways to raise my work chair so that my arms aren’t held up so high all day long. For now I am pleased to finally have an explanation that makes sense, and a course of action to remedy the situation.
I’ve started a second weblog, called some assembly required. I’m not sure how this site will fit into the “mark nichols online experience” yet. One thought is that I’ll save zanshin.net for longer, more introspective bits, and use some assembly required for shorter, chatty pieces.
Or not.
Wordpress.com offers free weblogs, with world-class software and lots of extras. If you’ve ever thought about having a weblog but were uncertain as to how to go about it, I highly recommend Wordpress.com.
One feature I espeically like, and am curious to see in action, is the inclusion of a meebo chat window on the site. Visitors to some assembly required will be able to see see if I’m online, and I’ll be able to see them (anonymously) as well. We can even chat to each other. Very slick.
In the word of binary numbers, this would be known as “high values” i.e., the largest value this register could hold. Were that the case here, the next number would have been “low values” or all zeroes. Sadly, that event won’t happen for another 888,889 miles.
While I most likely won’t see that happy event, at the rate I’m going I’ll see all 2s within the next three years.
As seen on Kottke.
Overland Park, KS (home) Manhattan, KS * Decatur, IL * Springfield, IL * Chicago, IL Mason City, IL Lincoln, IL Portland, OR Newport, OR Gold Beach, OR Bandon, OR Crescent City, CA Worcester, MA
(Asterisk means multiple visits on non-consecutive days.)
As a software developer, one who focuses (or can when he chooses) on minutia, I am often acutely aware that most people do not notice details. Which is a shame, as the little things in life are the ones that are worth noticing. Big things in life are just conglomerations of little things.
The lease I have with my landlord requires 24 hours notice before entry in to my apartment. I have to allow them access as needed, but they have to inform me ahead of time so I can tidy up, or hide contraband, or whatever. A seemingly small detail, but as it turns out an important one.
Upon arriving home from work yesterday my place felt a bit off. At first I didn’t register what was out of place and then I noticed clumps of lint or fuzz on the carpet. A trail of the stuff leading from the kitchen to the front door. Almost footsteps in the pattern.
‘Oh shit,’ I’ve been robbed again was my initial thought. Only nothing was out of place or missing. I was ready to grab the phone and call 9-1-1, which is when I noticed the message waiting light was flashing. The message, as it turns out, was from the apartment management informing me that they would be entering the apartment during the day to clean the clothes dryer vent. This explained the source of the lint trail, but did little to assuage my growing anger.
You’d think that after the way I carried on about the robbery they would have made certain that any intrusion into my apartment would be handled delicately, carefully, by-the-book, or lease as the case maybe. You’d be wrong.
I called the office and asked if they’d been in my apartment that day.
“Oh yes! We had the service people here today blowing out all the dryer vents …”
“And aren’t you suppose to give my 24 hours notice before entering my apartment?”
“Well we didn’t know he was going to be here until today.”
“You decide to clean a couple of hundred dryer vents on the spur of the moment?”
“No…”
“Then you could have given me notice.”
“I’m sorry sir. but …”
“When will you be back to clean up the mess your vent guy left on my carpet?”
" … "
“There’s a trail of lint and fuzz clear across the floor. When will you be here to clean that up?”
“Right away sir.”
They did come and clean up the mess the service people left behind. And they were very apologetic. I stopped by the office to give them (again) my cell phone number and ask that it be used to notify me of all future entries into my domicile. I may not get prior notice, but at least I’ll get a message before I get home to warn me that little gnomes have been mucking with my stuff.
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