… for Chronos did a fine job with the staff report What can I do to prevent static shock?.
I just want to add that since this is a chronic (but not chronos-ic) problem in the electronics industry, there is a lot of standard equipment out there to reduce static. Chronos touched on this in discussing the wrist straps, but for workers that have to walk around a lot, there are also heel straps, to keep you grounded as you walk.
One example of them is at this site. Although that is a commercial site, I have nothing to do with that company or their product; I’m just giving an example of a device that I have to use a lot. Just for any random person’s information and amusement.
I’m surprised that humidity wasn’t mentioned. Often you can reduce the static electricity in your environment by increasing humidity.
a quickly found cite: http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/staticcont.htm
Another good trick for preventing the shocks from static buildup is to bleed it off before touching anything made of metal. When I approach a door, I don’t just grab the doorknob – I touch the door. Doors, being (usually) made of wood or other poorly-conducting material, will accept the excess charge from your body very slowly, so that there is no spark. When walking through, say, a casino in Nevada, I build up charge rapidly; it’s my habit to trail my fingers along wood, plastic, or other non-metallic surfaces whenever possible, and to keep my hands touching metal until I can find another safe haven.
I just saw those straps-- I dunno.
Somehow I’m thinking the pain of static shock would be far less than the pain caused by the ridicule of the people who would see me in an office setting while wearing them 
Those straps seem like grounding protection from touching energized metal, say like a power tool with failed insulation or an electric motor with a broken or frayed ground strap.
I’ll touch the door with the back of my hand-- I’ve got it down to the point where people don’t notice.
I have the same trouble coming out of my car sometimes. To counter that, I just touch the open door before I put a foot on the ground.
Grounding straps aen’t really intended for the guy in an office who’s annoyed with being zapped; they’re primarily for folks like computer repairmen who regularly work with static-sensitive electronic innards. In a properly run electronics workshop or lab, you’d probably be ridiculed (and worse) for not wearing such a strap. But for the rest of us, they are an option. Myself, I prefer the key method.
Humidity can help, too, but around where I am, it’s not really possible to raise the humidity. Oh, you could try, but it’d take about 30 seconds for any moisture you added to be sucked up by the air outside. But if your office has ful climate control, and you have control of said control, then yeah, that’ll work.
Agreed-- re part about the motors and energized metal. Touching a doorknob with a Diet Coke can also seems to work. If you look real close you can see the spark.
Well, I’m only in that building for a week out of five, the rest of the time I’m in a Power Plant, so I am not too worried about it.
I live in Louisiana, so one might think with our humidity it’s not a problem but it surely is.
It just hurts like heck still. I remember cleaning a 36" TV screen then stupidly touching a piece of metal and shocking myself silly. I also recall reading a story about a fellow who didn’t ground his gas can while filling it at a station and lighting two cars on fire. Dangerous stuff.
I understand that can happen when someone drives up in a pickup truck with a gas can in the truck bed, and tries to fill up the can while it is still in the truck or sitting on the tailgate. You are suppose to take the can out of the truck and place it on the ground and fill it from there.
You also notice that the fuel trucks at airports will ground the truck to the airplane with a grounding strap before hooking up the fuel hoses.
As for discharging static electricity in the office, I just lay my palm against part of the door and then touch the doorknob. However, the only place where this is really a problem is the keypad entry to our Operations room. I have gotten in the habit of touching the metal faceplate to discharge static, because if I hit the buttons first, the static discharge will zap the electronics, and I will have to wait for the system to reset.
Try a static guard spray. I have found that the synthetic fabric of chairs will give me a static charge. This can be eliminated by periodically spraying the chair with static guard. You can also reduce the static generated by your own clothes by using lotion on your legs etc to reduce the static generating potential.
In a location you frequent, like your own office, you’ve likely figured out where almost all of the “shock points” are. Here’s what I do: if I know that a static discharge is likely, but I have to touch the doorknob or whatever, I just give the doorknob a quick “fwap” with my hand or fingers. I’m not sure why, but there’s no static arc when I do this; maybe it’s because the approach is so rapid that the gap between hand and knob is closed before the arc can occur.
Anyway, it works for me. One quick flick, and I’m free to operate the doorknob.
I used to live in a building that had an unfortunate convergence of thick carpets, metal doors, cold weather, and an electronic system running through the doors for buzzing people in. Touching the door handle to leave each morning gave me a pretty good jolt; my solution was to press against it with the back of my hand before using my fingertips to open it as I had been doing. I think taking the charge over a wider area is less painful; try this.
I was visiting my sister, driving her car. She has seat covers, and with the drier air, I was consistently getting a shock after getting out of the car.
Note: this can happen when fueling your car. If you leave the pump running and get into your car, be sure to ground yourself at the door before approaching the nozzle. This has caused several fires recently shown on the news.
Where I used to work, the electronics shop would not only use a grounding strap, but ground the chairs. This was done with a small piece of chain attached to the bottom of the chair (center post), such that it trailed about 4 inches on the ground.