Needs a bottle feeder.

September 18, 2014 8:15 AM

Yoga ball chair was too bouncy? Standing desk left you yearning for motion? Treadmill desk got you scrambling to keep up? Behold the latest in office fitness and productivity! The Hamster Wheel Standing Desk!
posted by pashdown (36 comments total)

Man that looks like it will stretch you calves.
posted by Bee'sWing at 8:19 AM on September 18, 2014

Oh my. Now it is official. Rat in a rat race.
posted by 724A at 8:26 AM on September 18, 2014 [5 favorites]

Did any of these people ever have a hamster? They routinely do that thing where they get a little off-kilter and then fall and whirl around with the wheel a few times before it tosses them to the side. And there aren't nearly enough wood shavings on that floor to cushion such a fall!
posted by almostmanda at 8:28 AM on September 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

No.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:29 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

BOSS AT HOME: "Oh shit, I forgot to feed Derek. I hope he doesn't die over the weekend."
PARTNER: "You can always buy another one."
BOSS AT HOME: "I know, but it's such a hassle."
PARTNER: "If you can't be responsible for your pets, then maybe you shouldn't have one."
BOSS AT HOME: *sulks* "You're right. I'm sorry."
posted by Fizz at 8:35 AM on September 18, 2014 [25 favorites]

Now there's a metaphor for you.

It's doubly funny, too, in that a lot of the standing-desk crowd seem to also posture themselves as being too enlightened to fall for the wage-slave bullshit their parents fell for.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:35 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

fixed that for you


STARTUP CEO: "Oh shit, I forgot to feed Derek. I hope he doesn't die over the weekend."
VENTURE CAPITALIST: "You can always buy another one."
STARTUP CEO: "I know, but it's such a hassle."
VENTURE CAPITALIST: "If you can't be responsible for your pets, then maybe you shouldn't have one."
STARTUP CEO: *sulks* "You're right. I'm sorry."
posted by sammyo at 8:40 AM on September 18, 2014 [6 favorites]

My desk is at the top of a climbing wall. Using the keyboard can be a real chaoiaqW
EFP0O'THIKN/B
posted by orme at 8:43 AM on September 18, 2014 [8 favorites]

Huh, it's an unsubtle metaphor from a 1970s pulp Sci-Fi novel come to life.
posted by codacorolla at 8:44 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Between the treadmill desks and the open-plan office, it looks like businesses are getting their interior design tips from Victorian prison trends.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:45 AM on September 18, 2014 [15 favorites]

Inspired. I wonder how much force it takes to spin it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:51 AM on September 18, 2014

Enough to generate electricity?
posted by Ahab at 8:52 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The evidence that sitting for long stretches of time is incredibly bad for your health is pretty hard to ignore at this point. I've been thinking about getting a standing desk, but I do find standing still actually more fatiguing than walking. There's no way I could fit this thing in my office, but if I could set one up I'd be intrigued to give it a try.

I can kinda see the "ho ho it's a metaphor!" thing that everyone else in the thread has gone for, but if the choice is between a cage that doesn't provide for our wellbeing and one that does, I'm not sure why we would consider the one that does as the epitome of callous capitalist exploitation.
posted by yoink at 8:54 AM on September 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

I've been thinking about getting a standing desk, but I do find standing still actually more fatiguing than walking

You need a sit-stand desk. Or, I suppose, a hamster wheel.
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:56 AM on September 18, 2014

There is no rat race. Each of us walks her own wheel at her own pace until time runs out.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 9:07 AM on September 18, 2014 [4 favorites]

I won't be satisfied until all of my work can be beamed directly from my brain while I splash around in a pool.
posted by bleep at 9:12 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

I won't be satisfied until all of my work can be beamed directly from my brain while I splash around in a pool.

How big of a pool are we talking about here?
posted by codacorolla at 9:21 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The solution to this problem is to work in a cheap and uncomfortable chair and break whenever the hell you feel like it which is very often. Also you will be changing jobs frequently!
posted by bukvich at 9:21 AM on September 18, 2014

You need a sit-stand desk.

Yeah, I'm thinking about that, too. Actually, I think I might set my office up so I stand at the computer and sit for other tasks.
posted by yoink at 9:26 AM on September 18, 2014

Twenty comments in and still no obligatory xkcd link? (It's surprisingly ergonomic, except for the kicks.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 9:52 AM on September 18, 2014

why not just a manual treadmill? less space. you can stand still or move, you don't have spinning boards on either side of your monitor making you motion sick.
posted by nadawi at 9:57 AM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

We're required to have crank desks at my office, with the option of a yoga ball for a seat. I spend about 3/4 of the day standing. I love the setup so much that I duplicated it in my home office. I think a treadmill might be a bit distracting; a spinny wheel of doom, moreso. I stand on a balance board when I'm standing, which alleviates the boredom of standing still.

When I'm sitting, I spend a lot of time balancing on the yoga ball (look ma! no hands or feet!) It's great for the times I'm just reading.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 10:08 AM on September 18, 2014

People get to sit down at work? Looxury!
posted by jonmc at 10:11 AM on September 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

Pepsi blueprint: Instructables Joins Autodesk
posted by ennui.bz at 10:14 AM on September 18, 2014

How long until offices start installing these and having staff generate their own electricity?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:55 AM on September 18, 2014

The wheel should be made of monitors, carefully synchronized to the rotation to prevent any downtime.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:08 AM on September 18, 2014

I already sent this to my boss asking for one. My office is mocked because we don't use overhead lighting. I said that with this we could generate electricity to power all of the energy hogs in the rest of the building who foolishly work with the lights on.
posted by tofu_crouton at 11:38 AM on September 18, 2014

More Office Workers Switching To Fetal Position Desks
posted by Poldo at 11:39 AM on September 18, 2014 [5 favorites]

This doesn't seem too bad, as long as you only have one person per wheel, so you don't get the thing where one asshole is running really fast and you fall down and the asshole keeps running and jumping over you and running and jumping over you while you're spinning and spinning and spinning.
posted by ckape at 11:58 AM on September 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

A friend sent that link to me earlier today, and I was so caught up in my own workload/psychological treadmill that I totally missed the tongue-in-cheek angle. There's probably a moral in that somewhere.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:04 PM on September 18, 2014

Aw, it's not for you. It's more of a Shelbyville idea.
posted by mosk at 1:52 PM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

So no one else felt vertigo just watching this? Having the "wall" behind your monitors constantly slide past your eyes while you also tried to read/type (and walk) looks like self-induced seasickness. Ugh.

I would like a sit/stand desk, but only if I could get a nice soft mat to stand on and be allowed to wear my fluffy socks.
posted by emjaybee at 2:19 PM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Did any of these people ever have a hamster? They routinely do that thing where they get a little off-kilter and then fall and whirl around with the wheel a few times before it tosses them to the side. And there aren't nearly enough wood shavings on that floor to cushion such a fall!

The best thing they'd do is run and run and run and then when they tried to stop suddenly they'd get spun around for a few revolutions by the momentum of the wheel. I hope this does that.
posted by aubilenon at 2:22 PM on September 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Y'all can snark all you want. I'm sitting at my desk at work while the sciatica in my lower spine shoots tiny bolts of pain down my legs and up my back, and I know that the longer I sit, the worse it is for my back.

I would kill for that hamster wheel about now. Actually, I'd settle for just a standing desk.
posted by zardoz at 5:57 PM on September 18, 2014

I don't know how people with standing desks type. I hate typing while standing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:30 PM on September 18, 2014

emjaybee: "Having the "wall" behind your monitors constantly slide past your eyes while you also tried to read/type (and walk) looks like self-induced seasickness. Ugh. "

If this was a problem it would be pretty easy to attach a panel to the desk that went behind the monitor and would block the view of the rotating wheel. I'd probably do that anyways just to prevent floor dirt from dropping on my keyboard.
posted by Mitheral at 8:52 PM on September 27, 2014