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Slacker or Sick
dancpsu writes "Researchers at Temple University's College of Health Professions found that early nerve damage caused by repetitive strain injuries can trigger "sick worker" syndrome -- often mistaken for poor performance. They discovered that nerve injuries caused by low-force, highly repetitive work can be blamed on an onslaught of cytokines -- proteins that help start inflammation. Unexpectedly, the researchers also found that the cytokines affected the rats' psychosocial responses. At three weeks, even before the rats experienced pain from their wrist injuries, they began to self-regulate their work behavior. By five weeks to eight weeks, when cytokine production reached "peak" levels, some rats curled up in a ball and slept in between tasks."
"Early nerve damage caused by repetitive strain injuries can trigger "sick worker" syndrome -- characterized by malaise, fatigue and depression"
If this doesn't prompt you to get up from your computer and go to bed a bit earlier tonight, there's no hope for you, in other words. You'll be involluntarily curled up like a rat ball, if you don't take charge of your wrist health.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Can reading slashdot over and over make you sick? What about reading dupes on slashdot over and over?
Man, I have been having the 'slacks' at work all week. I have also been having a lot of wrist/lower back pain because I have been doing a repetetive 'closing old records' task. This makes me think that I am not going through coffee withdrawal alone, but rather feeling the effects of RSD. Anyone else? -funkapimpalicious
Rats!
The scoop seemed a little strange and had me confused for a while. It started nice and clear before jumping from talking about workers to researchers and rats. What the!? Didn't people learn creative writing at school? A story must have a start, middle and end. Not just a start and an end :)
When did employers ACTUALLY start hiring real rats for the rat race?
Oh, sorry, I read the story a bit more carefully now. Never mind.
Why slashdot? Why not?
No wonder I've been nodding off at wo...Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Damn, now they really have a reason to block slashdot at work places: it adds to RSI and then "sick worker syndrome"
...who felt sorry for the rats?
> By five weeks to eight weeks, when cytokine production reached "peak" levels, some rats curled up in a ball and slept in between tasks.
I do that at work from time to time as well.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
so does that explain why i^Hpeople sometimes fall asleep after masturbating? they get over the wrist pain quickly though..
What kind of exercises give rats "wrist injuries"? Did they get little rat-sized keyboards?
Who Moved My Cheese if you really want to be insulted.
Someone hates these cans.
Personally, I'm a slaker. But I come by that naturally. My father, and his father, and his father, were all slakers. It is the way of our people.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Here's some more info on Cytokines:
a ls/cytokines.html
http://microvet.arizona.edu/Courses/MIC419/Tutori
I wish TFA was a little more specific on which kind of cytokines they found... I guess we'll have to wait for the human studies.
Really, though, this should be no surprise. It's been known for some time that stress to the body results in immunological cytokine release.
The symptoms (pre-RSS) that they mention, like depression, fatigue, etc, are eerily similar to Epstein-Barr... I wonder if the immne system is revved up by the repetitive motions (hence feeling sick), or inhibited, like the EBV toxin.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Quote: often mistaken for poor performance It's not that I am lazy, it's just that I don't care...
...I obviously have that. I intend to apply for disability now that it's scientifically proven that I'm not lazy, I'm mentally conditioned to not reach my full potential.
does the rats have other rats yelling at them to get off thier lazy asses and work? or do they just get the cheese without lifting a finger?
are the more dominate rats asking the lab to give them more cheese since their work is more valuable?
do the dominate rats complain that any old mouse can do the lazy rats job?
Hello, Peter. We need to talk about your TPS reports.
sounds like life as a resident. boy did it suck. yep, not much different than life as a lab rat.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Maybe that's why I get so incredibly tired when I'm typing 20-30 pages a day. Earlier this summer it was so bad I thought I had narcolepsy. Then it got better, but now that I'm writing a lot again it's heated up. I slept for 23 hours yesterday.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
I do not allow my rat to use a mouse.
The latest Slashdot meme.
Damn, do those Rats go to University too?
Repetitive strain injury is one thing, but if you combine that with ultra-stress, depression, insane workloads, and extremely difficult work... THEN you're fucked. The common term for this phenomenon is "University".
Your hand is so sore you can barely write with it; your fingers seem permanently dented where your pencil resides.. in fact, every muscle in your body aches. Theyve been aching for so long you cant remember.. painkillers do nothing now. Youve had 8 strong coffees, your mind is numb and throbbs... Your neck is so stiff and sore... not a wink of sleep in days, yet you just couldnt fully fall asleep if you tried. Social interaction is futile - you can barely manage to utter coherent language, and most of such encounters are awkward and embarassing. All you can do is calculation, logic - the world around you seems etherally mechanical, filled with logical/mathematical portent. Youve been sitting on your bed for 12 hours straight, listening to the same song over and over, its 4AM, and nothing makes any sense anymore. Possible failure looms, watches you like a hawk - it forces you onward, mercilissly. Theres over 20 hours more material to study. The exam starts in 4 hours.
Sure... the rats "self regulate" their activity because of the possibilty of damage. Please... somebody...show me the same behavior in ever crack and war crack players (I'm guilty of both). If the tendency did exist to self regulate potenatially repetive stress related injuries I'd say that their logs would confirm as much. We've got tons of human related data.. why aren't we using it instead of rats?
I prefer to think of myself as a more of a test driven slacker.
Write a test.
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Compile
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Run test and get the red bar.
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Write the code to pass the test.
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Compile
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Run test and get the green bar
Curl up into a ball to sleep under the desk.
Repeat
I can do this for days.
Here is the Institute for Interactive Research's example of clickless user interface that I hope more application developers espouse in the future.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
Middle.
Management.
*shrug* If they didn't hire rats, there'd be unemployed MBAs and JDs clogging up the gutters. It's as much a public health issue as anything else.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
I'll use it if my Intro to Literature professor ever catches me sleeping in class. However after falling asleep three times (not kidding) I don't think he ever will. Unless I start snoring or the girl who sits next to me forgets to elbow me back to conciousness. Ahh, college.
This sig is false.
The article goes into details about repetitive work, cytokines, and work injuries. But it doesn't mention any remedies. Is the process reversible? Are there medications that can treat the production and effect of cytokines? If this is found to apply to humans, can a worker's routine be changed slightly, or would that person need to go so far as to completely change their job and lifestyle? Would they be able to fully recover?
when they put them through the tests
Whoo! Slack forever now baby! It's not my fault. If they fire me I'll sue under the ADA!
The preceeding post has been an attempt at humour. The poster takes no responsibility for your livelihood should you enact preceeding suggestion.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
http://www.unizh.ch/phar/sleepcd/demo/animals/chap 8/it0112.htm
"If this doesn't prompt you to get up from your computer and go to bed a bit earlier tonight, there's no hope for you, in other words. You'll be involluntarily curled up like a rat ball, if you don't take charge of your wrist health." This also includes jacking off.
now get back to work
The Slackers are gonna be offended... apt-get install sarcasm
Damn, someone took the domain already.
This article explains a lot...
Productivity of workers suffers because they are rats and are therefore prone to "sick worker" syndrome.
Bosses, on the other hand, are immune from this because they are highly evolved (or in some cases de-evolved) from weasels, and as a result are immune.
Why do they always perform tests on rats, and claim the results are somehow valid for or relevant to humans?
Check out this thread on the supposedly serious topic of planetary exploration.
What else do you come here for? Elightenment?
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
So now we have the gamer gets his/her high off the joy of the victory, the chase, or whatever, meanwhile heavy mouse and keystroke use are damaging the body and mind. Therefore, we have people who are constantly riding the joys of the game and then maybe suffering these other symptoms. I know folks like this anyway. And they wonder why we need Rydlyn and various forms of Lithium for bi-polar disorders eh? I'm not putting my games away, but I am certainly going to limit my time a bit.
> ... nerve injuries caused by low-force, highly repetitive work ...
That explains why my girlfriend won't get RSI. Her typing can't be qualified under low force.
Anybody got a bulk supply of keyboards by the way?
I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and
tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this
country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not. But I'm
sick and tired of being told that I am.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
They discovered that nerve injuries caused by low-force, highly repetitive work can be blamed on an onslaught of cytokines -- proteins that help start inflammation.
:D
Damn. No more browsing at -1 on slashdot, bye bye the source of the lowest, most evil filth in the world.
Although I do hear piquepaille actually posted two stories that didn't hyperfuckernate his own blog! good ey.
Tod.
please type the word in this image: churned
random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
some rats curled up in a ball and slept in between tasks
So that's why IE7 is taking so long to be released!
(I'm at work now)
I wonder if porn stars suffer from these repetitive motion syndromes?
No doubt pr0n surfers probably do!
O=='=++
What's interesting though, is that managers have a static view of people, as if they were components. Actually, they are systems with self-regulating behavior. Naturally, one of the things the system regulates is physical well being. But it would be interesting to try to quantify the effect of work on psychological well being.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... finally - a problem to go with his zero-button mouse solution!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I avoid having to take extra rests by using rats as wrist rests. They're ergonomic and keep the office free of crumbs. We do have a little problem with plague...
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky - an eight hour shift of menial RSI inducing tasks!
Pinky: "Narf!"
Pinky: "Zort!"
Pinky: "Poit!"
[curls up in a ball and falls asleep]
Seriously though, hardly rocket~surgery is it;
injure mouse - mouse doesnt feel like working - mouse rests to recover injury
Here's a thought, the mice might be sleeping between tasks because they're exhausted/bored out of they're tiny mouse minds??
From TFA:
"Repetitive strain injuries are the nation's most common and costly occupational health problem, affecting hundreds of thousands of American workers and costing more than $20 billion a year in worker's compensation, so employers have long been interested in the connection between the two conditions."
This makes no sense - it implies that employers have been looking for a link between depression/slacking and RSI - so are the costs associated with lost productivity, or remedial medical action and compensation? No surprises that doing repetitive tasks which cause you pain make you depressed... in fact, no surprises that doing repetitive tasks make you depressed.
On the other hand, how applicable is it to other injuries? Having recently been knocked off my bike and suffering a sore hand (but no more, thank god) I went through a phase of feeling distinctly sorry for myself. How much of that was emotional (loss of confidence and unwillingness to get back on the bike) and how much was it physiological?
I could say "in other news, people react negatively to painful stimuli" but that's not the point. A link between emotional well-being and physical well-being, that's interesting.
Neato! Medical science gives man yet another excuse to use in the never ending war on "Hey... how can I blame my problems on something else instead of taking responsibility for my own actions" typing... typing... typing... OWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!! My wrist hurts!!! I guess I won't be able to pay my bills this month either cause the doctor tells me it's not MY fault! Cool... now I'll have the cash to fly to Tahiti for the weekend!!! wooo hoo!!
I feel rather sorry for the rats. Do you think they dressed them up in suits, choked them with ties and shoved them into cubicles with tiny keyboards? It's just plain wrong. I'd hope that most would think twice before repeating the same experiment on human subjects.
this might discourage IT jobs being outsourced to rats.
If you are going to subject animals to pain and cruelty you should at least do it for some reasonable scientific purpose. This study is inane.
an ill wind that blows no good
...rats decided they had enough of the corporate, bureaucratic bullshit and conspired to tote AK-47 assault rifles to work. :-)
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Please read this document to read an alternative view of what "RSI" is. It makes a lot more sense then anything else. It's the only thing that was able to completely cure me when I had what I thought was "RSI".
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Wow, this is really some worthwhile research!
I work a very repetative job and I curl up between tasks all the time!
Defining Statistics and Social Research
I have rats, and let me tell you: they curl up into a ball and fall asleep at pretty much any time. Drink from water bottle, take a nap. Go get some food, take a nap. Vigorous grooming, then take a nap.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
When you click something, it is activated NOW. When you move your mouse over something there is a delay before it is activated.
When I want to get something done, I want to get it done NOW. I can't stand the delay.
Furthermore making actions time-based means that it is impossible for you to stop in the middle of something, since the mouse would continue to select various things if it gets bumped around while you are doing something else.
"The love of money is the root of all evil" -Jesus
The necktie is the symbol of the love of money.
The necktie is actually Lucifer's leash.
Never trust a preacher wearing a necktie, he's actually a Satan worshiper.
Actually, never trust anybody wearing a tie.
Never trust anybody not wearing one, either.
(MRC="grandpa")
Oops someone already posted obligatory python post three parents up...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Did they test on the rats from NIMH - oh gosh, the Secret of NIMH is out!
Apparently the strain attracts cytokines and they cause the damage. Death to cytokines!
By five weeks to eight weeks, when cytokine production reached "peak" levels, some rats curled up in a ball and slept in between tasks."
God. Those poor little rats. I know exactly how they feel. I hope that they can escape and form some kind of underground community of uber-intelligent rats who have strings of christmas lights, lighting up their underground tunnels, etc.
Give them a plate of nachos (with lots of jalepenos) and watch that productivity go right back up. Capsaicin, one of the things that makes peppers hot, blocks the activation of certain cytokine-induced transcription factors (like NF-kB)
The latest studies show that stoned rats perform better - I hear that geeks and weed go together like blue and berries... maybe we should legalize? :P
or crackdot
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Interestingly, I think I've been affected by this for years. *curls up into a ball like Metroid and rolls down the hallway* whee!
It's never just a game when you're winning. - George Carlin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Slacker.
BTW, I like the old poll method better.
Well that's good, now we know not to employ rats as programmers. Study people and maybe I'd believe it.
One day, Oh one day, we'll have scientists testing human conditions in manners that actually relate to humans. Then and only then will the health of the people on this planet improve.
Some days even working the scrollywheel on /. is too much effort...
No kidding, I'll open up an article, read some comments, scroll, etc, for awhile, then scroll down as far as possible until im at where I left off at the top, then rest my arms in my lap or on my chair. After I'm done reading everything on the page, I'll generally stare at the screen for a good 5 minutes, then fall asleep. I just can't get the courage to lift my hand up and scroll down some more...
I noticed this exact response with myself and am able to describe the pattern that the researchers describe, without having the exact chemical explanation. I was suffering from RSI without knowing it, and it translated into my being unable to make myself find a job. My E-mail writing also went from from probably 40 messages a week to maybe 1 a month within about 2 months. My friends thought I didn't want to talk to them. I didn't have any definable symptoms at that point, and no pain. After it got bad enough for me to notice it (1 year), plus another year to find treatment, and a year of treatment, I finally started to notice some improvement and my motivation for finding a job started to skyrocket. I HATED being out of work, or working the crappy jobs I did, and everyone thought I was lazy and slacking off. I got into such a huge depression. I"m glad I'm self-aware enough to have figured out what was going on, and I started telling people that I EXACTLY thought that my body was telling my brain to stop beating on my arms and hands, without it ever entering into the conscious awareness part of my brain. I could tell you WHY I didn't want to write an E-mail, I just couldn't make myself do it, and the urge mostly disappeared. When my hands do worse now (I'm constantly treating myself), I *feel* bad overall. My mood sucks. When my hands are doing great (when I have given them the best break and treatment I could), my mood is *great*!
:)
I wish the editors would take the humuour icon off this topic -- it's more important than people realize I think. When you suddenly stop doing something you love to do for no identifiable reason, start looking at your physical health. This is pretty well known for other kinds of injuries.
I can't tell you how much ribbing I got for my family and friends, and how embarrasing and humiliating it was to not make my brain do something when I desparately need it (a real job). I'm assertive normally, and interested in the world, and curious and smart and I hate being idle. Of course, other problems cascaded because of this: the shitty job I had killed my self-esteem after 3 years and has made adjusting back to the real job I have now harder. I hope the researchers who are involved with this pick up on the comments here. I'd use my real name but I don't want my current employer to know.
Thanks!
http://thebookhaven.homestead.com/Z_Who_Moved_My_C heese.html
It's okay, you're forgiven. ::coughjokestealingbastardcough::
"Excuse me, did you say 'Trekker'? The word is 'Trekkie.' I should know; I created them." -- Gene Roddenberry
Can reading slashdot over and over make you sick? What about reading dupes on slashdot over and over?
Now I have a poor excuse for my poor performance! My whiskers are twitching.