Thursday, July 18, 2013

Walking and Talking on my Treadmill Desk

The clients we work with at Translationz are extremely busy, overloaded and under pressure to deliver on short deadlines.  I am often contacted late in the evenings with urgent requests.   Our clients are located all over the world, in different time zones.  Frequently, my day begins at 5:30am, when I touch base with our USA clients and finishes after 11:00pm answering emails and talking with European clients.  We also provide interpreters and equipment for conferences; working long hours with event planners is the norm.

But I’m not complaining - I love my work!  Fulfilling the translation and interpreting needs for clients is a great joy!  However, working long hours does impede my regular exercise routine.  One day, after sitting on my backside for over 12 hours as I worked on my computer, I thought, ‘This is not quite right...I have to mix this up a bit. I need to stretch my legs and get some exercise’.  But I had work that required the use of a computer.

I had heard of this fabulous invention which I thought might ‘fit the bill’: the treadmill desk.  So I did a little research and found a few distributors in Australia.  But the price for one of these contraptions was a bit hefty.  The USA prices were closer to my budget - but add in the shipping - and darn - back to square one.

Researching further, I discovered articles, written by people in the same situation as myself, on how they made their own treadmill desks.  They recommended a visit to Ikea and even provided the model numbers for the tabletops and the screw on legs that would do the trick.  That Saturday, I headed out to Ikea—about a 50 minute drive away—with a yellow sticky-note listing the model numbers.  To my disappointment, Ikea no longer stocked these items.  Back to square one.

“This should not be so hard”, I told myself. Almost defeated, I decided to stop at the local Bunnings.  Going up and down the aisles I spotted a horizontal aluminium painter’s stand- priced at $127.  It looked like it might do the job and was definitely in my price range!   I purchased the hunk of aluminium and headed home.

I propped up the aluminium stand, secured it with a bit of Velcro, and placed 2 old DVDs in slots to ensure that the computer didn’t slide off.  And low and behold...I had made my own treadmill desk!

So now, when clients ring me, I often end up walking and talking on the telephone or walking and typing emails--logging up to 3 hours of walking per day!

Written by:
Karen Hodgson, CEO of Translationz