Dear all,
At my new job, my office has wall-to-wall carpeting. After walking around for a few minutes, whenever I touch anything made of metal (which is lots of things) I get a sudden shock from static electricity.
Is there any way I can ameliorate this? I hate getting shocked; I’m terribly phobic of it.
This vid gave me an idea:
Spray the carpet with a spray bottle with water and a little fabric softener.
Air humidity can also play a role. Static electricity is worse when the air is dry. If more people are troubled by it, or if you have a room where you can control your own air, you could buy and hang little air humidifiers on the heating. Or just have plants put in, they also humidify the air and people don’t forget to water them.
Also, pay attention to the material of your soles.
My office has the same problem. I’m in the habit of touching my metal file cabinet with the back of my hand when I leave my desk. It discharges the static electricity, and the back of your hand is much less sensitve.
Carry a paper clip or use some other piece of metal to periodically discharge yourself with. Same shock, no pain.
I pull my keys out of my pocket, and use them to touch the metal light switch plate. You can still feel it, but it’s no where near as bad.
Between my clothes and chair, I can generate a lot of static, to the point where, when I approach the plate cover, starting at about 3 inches away I can hear the charge bleeding off the key. Depending on how fast I approach, the spark can jump 1/4 to 1/2 inch when I go to touch the plate.
You didn’t ask, but beware of what you’re doing if you’re wearing earbuds. Just sayin’.
A paperclip is not a big enough sink to dissipate all the charge
Also, if you carry it around all the time it will simply get charged at the same potential as the rest of your body. Touching it then won’t have any effect.
Sorry, let me reword that.
Carry around a paper clip and use that to touch something metal with. Same shock, no pain.
IOW, touch the screw on the light switch or the filing cabinet or your coworker’s neck or your car body with a paper clip.
Every time I get up from my office chair and touch the safe (about 2 feet away) I get a shock. In winter I keep a paper clip right next to it (on a wood ledge). I pick up the paper clip, touch the safe and I’m good to go until the next time I get off my chair again.
When I get out of my car, I make sure I slide my calf along the body of my car when I get out. I get shocks, but they’re though my jeans so they’re not as painful. In the dead of winter, when my car is covered in salt, I try to avoid that and when I walk past our forklift, I touch that with one of my keys.
I’ve also had sparks jump from my key fob (to my ignition), my smart phone and my mouse. I try to avoid those for all the obvious reasons but also because a spark also has to jump to me on the other end, which hurts.
good ideas above.
make a grounding strap. put a large uncoated paperclip on you pants cuff, make a chain of uncoated paperclips to drag and reach the floor.
all clothing could be an issue. your clothing material and those of seats, in office and car, can cause static also.
grounding yourself before touching things that might be harmed by static like electronics, computers and phone is also good if you’ve just done something to make static (one material sliding over another).
What I usually do when I know there’ll be a spark: lightly “rap” or “slap” whatever metal thing you need to touch with your fingers. If you do it quickly enough, you close the air gap before a spark can jump across. No spark, no pain. After the rap/slap, you’re discharged, and can touch whatever it is normally.
Leave it to the Geeks! They’ve got an invention for everything!
Pretty cheap too. I’m not much bothered by static shock but I’m half tempted to buy one of these anyway. Just to see if it works.
Complain to the office manager.
Tell them this is dangerous to the expensive electronic equipment in the office, like computers, fax machines, etc. Tell 'em that they can pay for a lot of anti-static treatment for the cost of one destroyed computer.
(It’s not really likely to do that, but you’re much more likely to get something done than if you complained about getting shocked.) 
If you’re really phobic about this, there are special shoes you can get that will keep you grounded. Or you can wear heel straps, which effectively do the same thing by creating a connection from outside your shoes to your skin. I have to wear these when I visit the factory for my job.
But in every day life, I use the key trip. The pain of being shocked is because you are at the point of discharge. By using a metal object like a key as a conductor, you move the discharge to the end of that object instead of the end of your finger. The spark is the same, but the key (or other object) doesn’t complain.
-D/a
A friend known for setting static sparks of epic proportions had a large signet-style ring made in copper. He’s got such a natural touch of using it to blow off his charge that unless you know what he’s doing you really don’t notice.
Before the ring (which gave him the idea) he used a copper bracelet.
My last car had a screw in the door handle (the one to pull the door shut). That was three years ago and I still try to put my finger on it as I’m getting out of my car. It was so much nicer then getting dust and salt all over the back of my pant leg (and still feeling the discharges.
They say that women are more likely to start fires at gas stations if they get in/out of their car while the pump is running because men more commonly grab the car as they get out (sorry, no cite, just a factoid I picked up somewhere, might not even be true).
Shoes with copper soles. Practical, and fancy!
ETA: in a pinch, use the back of your hand to discharge all that negativity into the doorknob.
And it turns out there are even companies with solving this problem as their core business. That would make it easier for your management to deal with the problem in a way fitting for management: they just have to ask a company like that for an estimate of what it would cost to research and tackle this problem.
In the meantime, here are some more home remedies.
I bought this from ThinkGeek: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/9de7/it’s basically a fancy key or piece of metal.
Barring changing your carpets to conductive types, what I do is flick metal surfaces, like how you might flick a coin. The shock isn’t that painful, it’s the surprise. So by flicking a surface, the shock is hidden in the impact.
For getting out of vehicles, touch the metal body first, move your body out, then last of all release the metal.
Aw, Shakes already posted it. I’ll contribute more by saying it has a piece of conductive rubber so it won’t scratch things, unlike keys.
Oh God, the ear shocks - do not want.
What a great idea! I just slap something metal after I get up out of my staticky chair at work every time.