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I'm trying to find out if other online desks are confronting a problem
that's hit everyone on our staff: repetitive-stress injuries. Everyone in
our small department (there's three plus me handling our two dailies' online
sites) is having some sort of problem either in the wrists, fingers or elbows. 

I'm wondering if there's anything particular about the kind of work we're
doing that makes us particularly prone. Or is it, as our company nurse
points out, that everything we do is on the computer. 

When dealing with secretaries, she told me, she suggests they switch off on
filing duty or phone answering when typing becomes a problem. With copy
editors, she suggests they spend time out in the shop checking pages. In the
newsroom, reporters spend as much time out in the field getting stories as
they do at their terminals writing them. But our staff is in more of a
production mode than the copy editors -- we get the stories after they're
edited. And even when my staff gets breaks, they use them to do personal
surfing or play around with some new program we're trying out. Then they go
home and surf some more. 

I've got some ideas about how to address the problem, but wondered what
experiences others are having.

Herb Jackson, online services editor              hjack@injersey.com
Asbury Park Press                                 http://www.app.com	
The Home News & Tribune                          http://www.thnt.com


From owner-online-news@marketplace.com Mon Sep 16 21:34:40 1996
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To: Joan Kite