Toby Atkin-Wright

Filling in a compulsory VDU health and safety risk assessment this morning. Does anybody actually refer to a computer screen as a VDU? Other than in health and safety questionnaires, of course.

It stresses the importance of castors on chairs. Why is it that office chairs always have castors? Was there a campaign by the caster marketing board that managed to forever associated castors on chairs with employee productivity?

Since the dawn of time, chairs have typically had four solid legs. When one sits on a chair, one expects it to be solid, supportive, and not to whizz across the floor. None of my chairs at home have castors.

Britain built an empire while sitting on chairs with legs; now work is done sitting on fully-adjustable chairs fluidly whizzing about offices on castors, and we have a worldwide economic crisis. Down with ergonomics!

I've only once fallen off my chair at work, some fifteen years ago, when I was leaning forward towards my computer and concentrating so hard on my code that my chair slid away from me. I am convinced that castors are a hazard.