Stand-Up Employees

Standing work desks have been all the rage for the last few years, helping to  beat the age-old “secretary spread” issue that has plagued office workers everywhere. Sitting around all day contributes to a sedentary lifestyle that can lead to adverse health effects and obesity. Here at CableWholesale, our sales guy Jesse decided to try out a standing desk, and even built it himself. Below is his journey, and a step-by-step process to get your desk in standing position.

stand up desk

“Many of us, myself included, are chained to both a computer and phone for eight hours a day. If you haven’t heard yet about the many health benefits that come with using a standing desk, a recent article from The Smithsonian could literally save your life. By utilizing a standing desk, you will not only help to avoid the many health problems discussed in the article, it can also provide many health benefits such as: improving your mood, reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, increased productivity and reducing back pain caused from poor posture. Click here to read the Smithsonian article.

So now that the guys at SmithsonianMag.com have explained why sitting for prolonged periods can be harmful to your health, I’ll tell you how I built my own standing desk set-up, and how you can do the same. Here is the step-by-step process.

I was lucky enough to have an old monitor and keyboard laying around at home from a previous obsolete computer that I recently replaced.

I also pulled several needed parts from our warehouse:
41H1-27602 (SVGA Splitter) – To split the video signal from the computer to two monitors.
10H1-20203 (SVGA Extension) – To connect the computer to the splitter.
UC-451G (USB to PS/2 Y-Adapter) – To connect old PS/2 keyboard and mouse to the computer.
10U2-02106E (USB Extension) – To make sure I would have the distance needed to properly position my keyboard and mouse on the standing desk.

The next thing I did was unscrew the right portion of my desk from the hinges so that they could be raised to just below my elbows in a comfortable standing position. This allowed for about 1.5″ of slack so when the table was screwed back on top of the hinges, my forearms could rest on top, perpendicular to my body.

After that I positioned my keyboard and mouse to a comfortable position. I then placed the monitor in a location were my eyes could rest at a slight downward angle.

Next I plugged my PS/2 keyboard and mouse into our UC-451G, and plugged the USB end into our extension cable 10U2-02106E. I then plugged the extension cable into the computer, which automatically recognized the two new devices.

I unplugged the active monitor from the computer, and then using our SVGA extension cable 10H1-20203, I connected the splitter 41H1-27602 to the computer and connected the original and my old monitor from home to the splitter.

Lastly, I set the display settings to recognize dual monitors. Now I am working full-time with the best of both worlds.”

Here is the completed set-up:

http://files.cablewholesale.com/mailimages/weekly/cs_2014-10-28_image2.jpg

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