The standing desk experiment has been largely embraced by my coworkers and small benefits have started to roll out of it.  More people stop by in the course of the day as I make eye contact with many more people.  This particularly applies to people who are at least 5’10”.  I now know the schedules of some of the people who use the women’s restroom that is next to my cube (particularly the taller ladies) and I throw off some people as being simply a disembodied head, an effect caused by the height of my cubical wall.  This set up does have some limitations.  Some activities are so cognitively draining that standing is distracting.  I can’t stand and study nor can I stand and read some of the math-ier professional papers.  I also sit when I eat my lunch.  A final byproduct of standing is that I’m less interested in walking during lunch and I take fewer constitutionals.

The trade-off then becomes that if standing reduces the amount I walk per day by on average 2 miles or more, I’m actually not burning more calories by standing.  These are the times I’m glad I use a pedometer.  Let the month of data begin.