Today in Aggregation, what’s the most annoying thing a manager can possibly do to his/her underlings? Forcing you all to stand during a team meeting, of course.
But standing desks are apparently trending in the corporate/agency world, and The New York Times is ON IT. We get it–like Philip Roth, we have way too many back problems despite our relative youth, and we sometimes prefer to work standing up.
The Times was ahead of this trend way back in 2012, but today the message is a bit more important: how can one work at a standing desk without thoroughly annoying all of one’s co-workers?!
Mithun CCO David Carter (formerly of BBDO New York) had this to say about standing while working:
“There is a sitting area in my office with a table and a few chairs, but for a lot of meetings, people will just come and stand at my desk. Psychologically, it says we’re not going to hang out and have a longer meeting than necessary. It’s a little bit of a power move.”
This is a totally sensible statement: the practice is both ergonomically and economically efficient, because if there’s one thing ad agencies need less of, it’s meetings involving people who don’t actually play significant roles in the projects being discussed.
Next, Fallon director of film Pat Sidoti adds his five cents:
“If I have to think and compose a long email, I sit down.”
This also makes sense. We feel like sitting down might be better for editing video as well, no?
Of course, not everyone agrees about the benefits of The Desk, and earlier this year U.S. News explained to us that YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG because you can’t stand around all day, stupid.
We have yet to mention the corresponding “what to wear at a standing desk” story, for which the Times did not feel like consulting with any agency creatives or Faris-like thought leaders. It’s almost as illuminating as the recent story about how Mylie–sorry, Kylie–keeps it real with the help of the brands that felt like paying enough to appear in her content marketing placement.
Neither office thinkpiece included any mention of the Superdesk.