Yeah, so these days I also work from home. I recently posted some pictures. I also said: “I didn’t know my office was so ergonomic until I started to work from home.” Still true. My RSI came back. What’s that, you ask?
“Repeated Strain Injuries” can be anything that causes you pain in your hands, wrists or arms due to working with your hands. Many would say, that’s because I use Emacs. Let me tell you, that’s not it. If you live a life in text, you simply tend to have both the most powerful editor in the world 😁 and pains in your hands. 🥺
Yesterday I was looking at my keyboards again. I started buying keyboards because I hoped they would help. At the time I sometimes, rarely, heard people say that they didn’t help. Let me be that guy, today.
My keyboards: a Touch Stream, an Ergo Elan Kinesis, an Apple iPad, an Atreus, a Keyboardio, and the laptop.
Remember, though: if your hands or wrists or arms hurt, you can’t buy shit to help. Capitalism offers no product to help you heal. Not even six months of physiotherapy helped me heal. You need to work less. Do other things. That’s what helped me get a handle on RSI, not getting cool keyboards with fancy doodads. Just this: work less. Feel pain when you work? *Work less.*
And what does “work less” mean for me? I need take care of myself: curb my programming hobby after a long programming day. Don’t work many hours of overtime. Don’t lose myself in the flow: take those breaks to drink some water, get up and pee, go and make coffee. Move around. But also: Don’t work while angry. Don’t work with bad posture. Take up Aikido. Work part time.
I mean, I do feel a bit better when working in the office but perhaps that’s because I take more breaks, get up when somebody talks to me, and so on. Otherwise, yeah, I’m kind of suspicious of all the ads telling people to buy things to help with their RSI. I bought four keyboards and three office chairs, for example. How many more do I need to buy before I can tell other people: maybe buying things is not going to help? It’s an interesting problem.
It’s an interesting problem because of capitalism. Capitalism favours those that produce a thing and sell it. It gives them more capital to produce more things, to buy ads, and the users of their things will defend their expenditure and those who decided against buying anything at all can’t say much because they have nothing to show for it, and those that didn’t produce a thing, useless or not, as long as they didn’t produce it, they made no money, and so they also have but a tiny voice. Like me, on my blog.
I also like the fact that I picked up Aikido all those years ago. Was it 15 years ago? Aikido made me feel good about myself – but it also didn’t prevent the pain after a long day at work. What prevent the pain was not spending a long day at work.
If you feel the pain later – for example in the morning after a long day – then consider that this is typical for inflammations. The pain disappears during the day and comes back when the body has time to work on the damage done.
And finally, if you intend to comment: posting funny quips about your pain might help you handle it right now but also – please don’t destroy the only hands you have for the lulz. Post the funny comment if you must but also make sure you look after your body. It’s the only one you’ve got.
As for the keyboards: none of them helped with the RSI. Working less allowed me to just keep using lousy laptop keyboards and that didn’t cause any further complications.
The one keyboard I used for the longest time is the Kinesis one – but I stopped when I got new laptops that needed USB and that keyboard had the old plugs. PS/2 or whatever it was called. I got the new laptops, and maybe the pain got a little bit worse with those keyboards, but it got a *lot* worse if I worked overtime.
Working less is the best you can do for your hands.
If you want to tell me that buying a new keyboard, or a new desk, or a new chair has helped you, that’s cool. Be happy! By also consider what I have tried:
1. the TouchStream keyboard
2. the Ergo Elan Kinesis keyboard
3. the Atreus keyboard
4. the Keyboardio keyboard
5. the regular mouse
6. the trackball
7. the touchpad
8. the regular office chair
9. the comfy office chair
10. the inflated ball instead of a chair
11. the chair where you half-sit on your knees
12. the current chair where I can incline the sitting surface
13. the standing desk
14. physiotherapy
15. massage
When exactly am I allowed to say that perhaps these things aren’t working? How many more do I need to try before I can begin to recommend people *not* buy something – without people telling me that a thing they bought helped them, or that the only thing that helped me – working less – is a luxury not everybody can afford? Let me tell you, that feeling of dread when you realize that you are destroying your hands and that you need your hands to do the thing you do best, the job you know best, that is a terrible feeling. I know how it feels.
Other people keep recommending to buy things, but surely this should be a symmetric thing: people say, buy a hand rest, a wrist warmer, a monitor stand, a keyboard, a chair, a desk, a standing mat, and I say don’t buy anything, just work less, or find a different line of work, just change your life instead of buying more things.
Companies mean well, they are run by people who make exciting products. I love cool keyboards, as you can see. But also consider that they have marketeers in their employ, salespeople, all of them trying to make you buy a product. They do this by insinuating that these products might help your RSI, and so people keep buying them. Look at my list: so many things I tried that didn’t help, and one thing that did: working less. Surely that must count for something?
In all of the discourse online, you need to remember how capitalism works: selling is how somebody makes money, which allows them to make more things, buy ads, hire salespeople, improve their products, and so on. Even if doing nothing is just as well, capitalism makes sure that those who make a product that sells get a louder voice: their ads are seen, their products are reviewed, their customers speak up. Those who do nothing, those who work less, they don’t make adds, they don’t review products, they don’t speak up, their voices aren’t amplified.
Buy a new keyboard because you love mechanical keyboards. Don’t buy a new keyboard because you think it’ll help your RSI. If it does, by all accounts, post about it. But realize that if you’re posting it here, please don’t invalidate my experience. I’m assuming many people have experienced the same thing as I have. They aren’t speaking up because they left the field, or changed their line of work – more talking, or training, or managing, and less typing. They aren’t speaking up because the solution they found to their problem did not involve a product they bought.
Case in point:
The Dygma Raise is an expensive keyboard, no doubt. Did it help with my back pain? Not so much, unfortunately. But it is an amazing keyboard … – Color is the key -- configuring my Dygma Raise keyboard, by Holger Schauer
Color is the key -- configuring my Dygma Raise keyboard, by Holger Schauer
Anyway, I’m using the Atreus right now, and my wrists still hurt. I should work less. See 2022-01-21 New Keyboard Layout.
2022-01-21 New Keyboard Layout
#Keyboard #RSI #Work from Home #Pandemic
