After having worked for several years in IT, I still think the issue of office ergonomics is just not getting enough attention. A good chair is certainly very important for doing any kind of cunfuser work. But that's not the only crucial factor. As aijin points out, monitor height is important, too. And accordingly, so are the desk height and the distance between monitor and keyboard.

Sadly, good chairs, desk and monitors are usually neglected in the belief that they only serve comfort. But having suffered from back problems myself, I find that this is an issue which goes way beyond that, as this article argues. Ergonomic office furniture is very important for people who sit at their desk all day long and don't get to move around too often. (That obviously doesn't only apply to IT people.)

I have a good chair at home, because as part of my work is freelance, I often work at home. At the office, where I'm part-time employed, I have a chair which is not exactly ideal. But then, I feel that although office furniture is crucial, as stated above, the whole office environment influences your programming. At my office, I (too) often have to do user support, which means that someone comes into my office, usually without knocking on the (admittedly mostly open) door, and just starts going on about their problem they want me to fix NOW, "if you have time...". And because I'm not working there fulltime, I share my office with one of the trainees, who is frequently using the phone. I think it's reasonable that the people working fulltime get to have their own offices, as we just don't have enough space for everybody to have their office. But then, this means that whenever I have to write a more complicated program than just some update for the website, I do it at home.

So, when I hve a quiet room, a comfortable chair and a monitor which is the right height, and the right distance away from my eyes, I can concentrate much more - which makes for better code. And getting up from time to time, walking around and air my head helps, too.

--cs

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