Start-up employee instructed to use 'RSI gizmos' that hurt them: 'Otherwise you're wasting company money!'

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Feb 17, 2024 11:00 AM EST

This office was so insistent on caring for their employees that they ended up doing the opposite. It's a strange tale presented by u/ShellLuser42, a systems administrator at a start-up. 

Start-up companies are often the subject of bizarre stories like this. Oftentimes they're started by groups of college kids or tech people, and their business grows slowly over time as they add more and more employees. Since a lot of start-ups revolve around cutting-edge technology, the higher-ups want their company to look the part. This is the type of business that will have nap pods and a foosball table for their employees. It's the kind of business that proudly touts its unlimited vacation time and flexible remote work policies. Some of them even like to have a futuristic vibe to their job site, adding in quirky ergonomic chairs, standing desks, or treadmill desks. The only issue with that is that one person is deciding for the entire company what comfort means. Some random HR manager decides which chairs everyone will spend 40 hours per week sitting in… and you'd better hope they're actually comfy! It seems like so many chair designs are created for back support or whatever, but they're crazy uncomfortable after a few hours. 

This person had an issue with the RSI combatting tools their company assigned them (RSI stands for Repetitive Strain Injury). They shared their story below in a long tale, but it's worth the read! You can also read the TLDR (see #31) to get the quick version of the systems administrator's story. 

Next up, these people shared the unintentionally hilarious things people said to them. 

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  • 01
    I *need* to use these RSI tools? If you say so...
    via Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
  • 02
    I *need* to use these RSI tools? If you say so... XL OC Hi gang! Backstory This happened quite a few years ago. I was the systems administrator for a small start-up media design company. We had approx. 14 people on staff and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. Just for context a little thing about me: I am a bit of a geek / nerd and "the computer" also takes a bit part of my personal life; it fuels some of my biggest hobbies. Not just gaming, but I also enjoy messing with (digital) audio, 3D graph
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 03
    Most importantly I really enjoyed my work, and thus noteworthy: it wouldn't be the first time when I took some work home with me. That is... I had remote access to our small network so when something needed to be done I could often do so from home. And before we continue I'd also like to emphasize that I truly believe in the good intentions of the bosses, they were really just trying to look after us best as they could. Our main "Karl" otoh...
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 04
    The big project / RSI "training" The company was run by 2 bosses but as work piled up for them (= assumption on my part) they started to rely on an office manager. And this dude would sometimes seriously overstate his own importance.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 05
    At the time of the story the company had closed a deal with none other than the city council to set up a digital "meet and greet" with the council members. This sounds horribly trivial right now because online chatting facilities are pretty common these days, but back then it was all still quite new. Because I spent a large chunk of my (private) time online (on IRC back then) it didn't take long for the bosses to decide that I should fully handle the technical details of the whole thing and of c
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 06
    In other words: visitors would use a website to chat using said website, but the whole thing basically ran on an IRC server. Normal users couldn't access that server directly, but obviously I could. I still remember to this very day because I got official permission to use IRC at work, so obviously I kept some of my favorite public chats around as well ;) IRSSI (= linux based IRC client) was awesome like that, because it could easily connect to multiple servers at the same time. But I digress.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 07
    The incident Because the bosses wanted everything to be perfect they decided to hire an "ergonomic specialist" who would advice all of us staff members on how to prevent RSI. In case you're not aware this stands for Repetitive Strain Injury which is basically a muscle issue caused by, usually, repetitive motion (and a whole plethora of other things, see its Wikipedia article right here).
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 08
    We all followed along and all of us got some new equipment to use our computers "more safer". Cushion pads in front of the keyboard, different chairs with arm legs, a mandatory stress ball and some other things. Now, despite the fact that I was very skeptical about the whole thing I still decided to keep an open mind about it and try things out to see where it would lead. I mean... couldn't hurt, right?
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 09
    Well, wrong. After 2 days I started to notice problems at home. My hands began to hurt, I started getting issues with typing and me and some online friends got creamed at a Quake tournament, which for a large part (but not all of it) was because of me. No, I wasn't some awesome star Quake player, never have been, but I could still hold my grounds. But that evening I totally sucked, it was bad. Really bad.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 10
    Of course I had a good hunch what was causing all this so the next day at work I dumped all those RSI gizmo's into a closet and went back to the way things were. One of the bosses did briefly ask me about it but I explained that it just wasn't working out for me and that I was actually starting to get issues. He fully understood. But for some dumb reason the office manager didn't.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 11
    You HAVE to use those tools, otherwise you're wasting company money!! As I suspected things got a lot better for me, but later that afternoon the officer manager noticed what was going on and he threw a fit. What in the world was I thinking? Did I have any idea how much money the company had spent on all those improvements?
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 12
    And never mind about me... what if other people needed to use my computer? Then they needed those aids to be there, to which I commented that as far as I was aware no one was allowed behind my PC because my network security clearance was practically the same as the bosses. Because of my support role I had full access to everything, if I wanted to I could easily pull up all our financial records for example. Something that actually happened at one time when an external accountant made a visit and
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 13
    Anyway, the manager didn't like that comment ;) First I figured that I would just leave those RSI gizmos lying at the side of my desk but nooo, he insisted that I just didn't understand what was good for me and that I had to use those tools. So, I complied. Though very carefully.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 14
    That day my speed at getting work done for the big project plummeted, big time. For obvious reasons I was also no longer doing anything from home anymore. In fact: I had excused myself on IRC and said that I would be taking a break because of the way things went and would severely limit my overal PC time at home as well.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 15
    Books (fantasy novels, Dragonlance FTW!) and TV can also be fun ;) But as I had expected my complaints became worse. Houston, we have a (major) problem...
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 16
    After having spent a whole weekend with barely any private PC interaction things got from bad to worse that next Monday at work, even typing became a chore for me. Me... who can type blindly with two hands ("four fingers") at a very decent speed, and without having followed any typing courses. So I took the afternoon off and went to visit my local doctor.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 17
    His first comment when I described by problems and my theory as to what was causing all of it? => "Yeah, you're not the first one with such issues. There seem to be quite a few companies active right now who claim to help prevent RSI, but in fact they're merely fueling a sales model". When I didn't fully understand what he was talking about he told me that in his opinion that "ergonomic expert" was only in it for the money to sell his merchandise.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 18
    According to my doctor the guy should at the very least have realized that if I was already using computers so intensively, both at work and at home, that I was probably already aware of the importance to rest your arms. Instead of dismissing all that he should have given that some extra thought and anticipate for it.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 19
    So the doctor wrote me a prescription... First an ointment to help relax my wrists and arm muscles. Then a mandatory 2 week break from work to help recover from ... "having developed mild yet disturbing symptoms of RSI due to unprofessional conduct". The big project was next week... and we weren't even near "ready".
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 20
    I honestly felt bad for my boss the next day when I told him what had happened while handing him my doctors note :( He was NOT happy, he was fuming! No, not directed at me: I had his full support and sympathy but he still turned red and stomped off to the office managers desk, with me following him.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 21
    Of course the office manager denied everything, I had simply "misunderstood" him; no way would he demand something as "dangerous" as that. This is when I learned 2 things.... 1. Always document things to cover your . Something I obviously hadn't done. 2. Working in small(er) companies rules!
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 22
    See, while the bosses had their own office the rest of us sat at tables in a large room, spread over 2 areas. So the moment the office manager started denying things some of my coworkers immediately stepped up: "Oh, does that mean I can finally throw this thing in the trash then without getting fired?" my colleague and former friend sneered. (former: contact simply watered down over time).
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 23
    The boss turns to me.... "Shell, why don't you go home and rest? No need to get involved with the upcoming drama", to which I nodded and thanked him. But I also told him that I would be contacting them later that week to try and help sort things out. I wasn't sure, but still saw a possible way out of the upcoming doom scenario.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 24
    Aftermath As much as I wanted to ignore the whole thing and just do my own thing I decided to stick with "no PC time at home" for the next 3 days just in case. Thursday evening I hopped back online for a short hour and did some asking around. First I called my colleague / friend from work to ask him about the status of the project; in specific if the designers managed to finish the website.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 25
    Then I reached out to a dear online friend of mine who also happened to be an UnderNet IRC operator and I asked him if there would be a possibility to link our website frontend directly to his server using a dedicated port ("connection") for security purposes.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 26
    See, the only reason we purchased a commercial IRC server was to comply with certain regulations, security reasons being one of them. Now... my idea obviously wasn't fully on-par with all of that but if you can't trust an official UnderNet server to be safe, then who can you? ;) Yah, that was also meant as a bit of a joke :) But what you don't know can't hurt, eh? Or something like that...
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 27
    So I contacted my boss the next day and told him about my plans and that there would still be a way to salvage the whole thing. Though he might not fully like how I was planning on doing that :P To which he (jokingly!) responded that he was already that I was gone for 2 weeks so... how much worse could it get? ;)
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 28
    Well, the next week the online chat session worked perfectly. We basically set up a dedicated chat channel, my IRCOp friend set up an "X instance" to keep things safe and quiet and the chat attendance was quite decent.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 29
    The week after that, when I got back to work, I did have a small run in with the office manager who told me that he wasn't happy that I "hadn't just told him what the problem was" but I decided not to get into that again and simply responded that he also could have chosen to trust my judgement when I told him I didn't want to use those RSI gizmos.
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 30
    We kept things cordial, but according to my friend the manager never seemed to dare and question any of my decisions again. I really don't know for sure but he was convinced. I even joked about it that I would try and keep it in mind when I was going to ask for vacation leave ;) Which never happened of course. And there you have it. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 31
    TL;DR • I'm was a network admin at a small company, we're working on a big project for the local city council. • The bosses wanted the best for us staff, so they got an RSI "expert" to help improve the way we used our computers. • Instead of improvement I only got issues, so I stopped using those RSI tools. • The officer manager did not like this and demanded that I continued using those gizmos. • I did, carefully, and my work speed dropped significantly. I also decided to stop using my PC at ho
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 32
    • The next Monday, after a weekend without PC usage at home, typing became plain out painful. I took the rest of the day off and visited my local doctor. • His diagnosis? I sustained mild symptoms of RSI due to "unprofessional conduct". I got ointment for my hands and wrists, and a 2 week sick leave. 1. But not • My boss was at me, I was told that he ripped the office manager a new one during my absense. • Later that week I started doing some things from home again, carefully, and we still manag
    via u/ShelLuser42
  • 33
    Anna__V Oh man, the "ergonomic boom" back then was crazy. I remember many had to change to the weird roller-mouse thingy that's in front of your desktop. (To be fair, that IS an awesome product, I just never learned to use them.) And the weirdly shaped cushions in front of mousepads and keyboards, and then the "natural keyboard" models. It was a weird time.
    via u/Anna__V
  • 34
    I was working then in a small computer shop run by the couple next door from where I lived. We got a visit from an "Ergonomy Specialist" too, because it was mandated by the city or something? I don't remember and/or know. Thankfully that didn't lead to anything forced, and it was mainly for checking if our chairs were old and ps. hello fellow old IRC- nerd. Both UnderNet and IRCNet :) Irssi was king, and I still get a shudder going when someone mentions mIRC. (Or "em- irc" as people called it ba
    via u/Anna__V
  • 35
    Jezbod I have done the UK DSE (Display Screen Equipment) assessors course - it covers the whole user environment, not just the screen. We ha a discussion on the uselessness of most items labeled as "ergonomic", one example was a pair of "ergonomic shorts" (UK knee length cargo, not underwear)
    via u/Jezbod
  • 36
    Only_Lead469 Always amused me that we had to do our DSE assessments regularly - in a hot desking environment, think thirty people using 10 desks. It was the NHS too, so all the furniture was the cheapest available and none of the chair adjustment mechanisms worked for longer than about a month. They also refused to buy headsets for the phones., in a community team where you spent much of your office time on the phone...
    via u/Only_Lead469
  • 37
    Wells1632 At the time the ergonomic boom happened, I was in desktop support. At the time I figured that because of the variety of different keyboards that I was confronted with throughout the day of visiting different users, I was not going to have a problem in the first place simply because my effective keyboard layout was constantly changing.
    via u/Wells1632
  • 38
    bartharok Heh, we have "ergonomic" office chairs at our workplace, unfortunately they ones buying them dont realise that we do not do office work, and the chairs just cause me back problems because of that.
    via u/bartharok
  • 39
    Quoth666 I have a very basic 15+ year old keyboard that I'm so used to that I can't type as well on any other keyboard (I do a lot of numeric input and just can't get the same speed on my home keyboard if I work remotely). Most of the keys letters/numbers have worn away. My boss uses my computer occasionally and would love for me to get a new keyboard so he can see the keys as he single finger types but understands my reasons. Every so often I idly look at new keyboards and ask him if I can spen
    via u/Quoth666

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