I Hate My Desk

I really have to vent about my desk at work. It's awful. I took a picture with my camera phone to see if I could upload that tonight. My desk is really loooong and really narrow. So I can't do real work on it like actually spreading out papers or anything. And my chair doesn't roll underneath the desk because the desk is so high and bumps into the armrests so I have to sit either way back in my chair or on the very tippy front part. Because I am on the computer all day long, typing and doing whatever, it's really important for my desk to be comfortable and the mouse and keyboard to work for me! The desk is also built into the floor so no chance of convincing anyone to get me a new desk that is actually designed for a human to sit at it and work. So, I've worked here over 3 years now and am having a lot of wrist pain lately! Dun dun dun... so of course I freaked out and had my chiropractor look at my wrist. I have a "ganglion cyst". It's a sac of fluid that bulges beneath the skin that has developed from the friction of my wrist movements at work and it's not dangerous or anything...just irreversable and annoying. It's also known as a "Bible bump" which I thought was funny because in the "olden days" they used to pop the bump by hitting it with the family Bible. But doctors today have ruled that treatment as "less than recommended" since people often broke the bones in their wrist from the impact!

So I am less than amused that I have this cyst for life. But this morning, I started feeling my elbow along with my wrist giving me those cold little sharp fatigue warning pains...and I freaked again. I'm not going to be a receptionist martyr. So I asked my IT guy for a keyboard that didn't have a tilt radius of 80 degrees...and he didn't but he had one an extra keyboard that didn't tilt as dramatically. My desk is built really high and my chair won't raise up high enough to get my arms at an angle where my hands are down. So I'm always reaching up for my mouse or keyboard and it's wearing on my body!

So I spent a little while this morning trying all sorts of arrangements to get my desk workable. I think I will have to settle for 2 phonebooks to prop under my screen and a wrist rest that stretches 6" past my keyboard. I can't get my chair any higher to sit above the desk. Agh! My arm hurts....

Oh and to top it off...this keyboard smells like moldy food. I'm bringing Q-tips tomorrow and going to town on this thing. It's grossing me out to even sit by it.