everything in its right place

when you're an office cubicle drone like me, sometimes it's the little things that can provide a quick and refreshing uplift.

i may be more fortunate than most in that my employer provides everyone with at least two monitors - can't tell you how much that improves efficiency when you're working in multiple applications.

being a somewhat tall individual i need my monitors raised up off the desk in order to maintain a comfortable viewing angle; to that end i use the desktop computer for one monitor and an actual monitor stand for the other.

this setup has been in effect for a long time, the monitor stand for the left monitor in front of me and the desktop computer for the monitor on the right.

now, i also frequently listen to music at work; in the past pre-ipod days i connected my headphones to the headphone jack on the front of the desktop. this has always been fine but for the fact that the headphone cord would often get in the way of my mouse activities or generally laying on or about any papers in front of me.

(side note: you wouldn't guess how weird it feels when you try to click a mouse button while a cord is stuck underneath the button's edge; your mind expects an audio and tactile feedback for the "click" that never comes and it's in its own little way very jarring)

what's embarrassing is that it wasn't until the ipod came along this week that i had the revelation this minor annoyance could be avoided. the ipod connects via usb to draw power from the computer so in effect i'd have the same issue with it as with the headphone / computer media player setup.

let's recap: mouse is on the right side, cords connected to the front of the desktop interfere with mousing / paperwork typically interacted with by the right hand.

hey, idiot, why not stick the desktop computer under the left monitor and put the monitor stand under the right? elegance in the simplicity of the solution

now my ipod is tucked away safely at the left side of the desk where very little work goes on to disturb it and the mouse is once again unhindered by a tangled web of cords.

of course this has necessitated the relocation of my water glass to the right side of the desk so as to avoid costly and frustrating spill accidents with the ipod, but as i lack the fear of change it should be manageable.