The Great News: Loving this job. The Bad News: I'm flying a desk.

What I've discovered and what I'm doing about it.

Joni Mitchell penned a little ditty with the memorable line -

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…”

Ms. Mitchell was talking about the physical environment on the surface and a whole bunch more symbolically. I took it to something that’s been resonating with me lately. About 130 days ago I took on this great job. There’s lots to like about it: new responsibilities, recognition for and the ability to draw on my deep experience in the field, and great working conditions.

Photo by Luca J on Unsplash

I’ve been a winemaker for most of 25 years. Tromping around vineyards, climbing up on tractors, lifting empty picking bins, clambering up ladders (almost daily), standing, walking, lifting, leaning, balancing. It’s been a job on my feet, active and invigorating. Sure, there was down time and catching up with paperwork, face in front of a computer. But for the most part it was upright and in motion.

And while I acknowledged this new situation would be different, as much as I thought I was prepared for the change, I was not.

Over the decades, I’ve had plenty of friends who spent an enormous amount of time at a desk. I’ve heard their stories, I’ve seen the results. Popular culture has plenty of stories about the desk and cubicle environment. I was, peripherally at least, aware of the potential health issues. I was not ready for the psych. By that I mean the way the mind tends to rationalize the data it receives to produce the more favoured result. Wait, what are you saying? We don’t all do that?

Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns. They include obesity and a cluster of conditions — increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and unhealthy cholesterol levels — that make up what’s referred to as the metabolic syndrome.

This is not me. Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Not too long into this I noticed some lethargy, I lost muscle tone, and saw changes in appetite, and few other minor things. It didn’t take long to figure out what was going on. I worked around my tendency to extend myself ‘allowances’ and created a plan for recovery. Here are the five steps I’m taking to do something about it:

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