Yes, everyone in my office had to take a goofy ergonomics training program over the web. Oh, and how we laughed at the idea that we needed to be told how to sit in a chair.
But then I saw how so many of my co-workers chose to contort themselves at their computers. Lots of these folks sit as low as the chair will go, with the keyboard as high and as close to the desk as possible, and then they tilt the keyboard so that it’s at a nearly vertical angle. They type with their hands held at a higher level than their shoulders! Oh, and their monitor is perched as high as possible - looming over their twisted frames. I’ve seen more comfortable gargoyles. In case my words have failed me, here’s an incredibly lifelike illustration in MS Paint. Anyways, what the hell is up with these people? Is my office the only one in which workers needlessly torture themselves?
When you sit at a desk, it’s uncomfortable to have the edge of the top riding into your forearm. But if you place your elbows on the desktop, then you’ve got one of the boniest parts of your body directly on a solid surface–which becomes uncomfortable again. If you get the top of the table about even with your armpits, then the elbow problem disappears because the weight is more evenly spread along your forearm, instead of just on your elbow.
That is to say, they are being ergonomic. Why aren’t you? 
I’m just here to applaud your graphic. He’s very cute. 
My husband gets after me for my hunching. He’s the one that has to massage the knots out, though, so I suppose he has a right to complain.
Some people have to be told that their posture sucks. Like me.
I went to the doctor a few weeks ago for a nasty pain along the right side if my neck. It felt like a pulled muscle or something, except it wasn’t going away after four or five weeks. The doctor asked me about my bed, pillow (both memory foam) and finally got around to my chair and desk setup at work. I laughed it off, thinking that he was really starting to grasp at straws.
When I got back to my office I sat down and told one of my coworkers about my quack doctor who thinks the crick in my neck is due to poor posture at work. My coworker immediately pointed out how I was leaning on my chair’s left armrest, causing me to tilt slightly to one side. Then, in order to see my monitor straight, I have to angle my head a little to the right. Or what I thought was just a little to the right.
I thought about it for a minute and then I straightened my upper body so that I wasn’t leaning on the armrest any more, but I did this while keeping my head and neck in the same position. In an upright position, my head ended up being cocked about 30° off my center line.
So I raised my left armrest up a few notches so that I can rest my arm on it without leaning my upper body to one side. Less than a week later my neck was fine. :smack:
I got tired of slumping in my office chair all the time, because I tended to carry that slouched posture around the rest of the time too, and because I thought it was part of why I was tired at work a lot, so I bought myself one of those kneeling chairs, to force me to sit up straight.
I can’t prove it, but I think the change may have caused a nasty case of tendinitis in both shoulders. I can’t think of any other changes or new activities I have done recently that might be the culprit.
I don’t regret getting the chair, though. I think this tendinitis is my body’s way of working out a new MO for sitting at a desk and computer. It’s working its way through and is getting better. At least I hope that’s going to be the outcome.
Sitting at a desk all day and working on a computer just ain’t natural, yoh.
Roddy