No real answer to add, but when I was younger I used to play chess pretty regularly.
At every tournament there would be people shaking their legs like crazy under their tables.
Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#22I think leg shaking is mostly harmless, the habits I worry about are:
1) Constant muttering stream of expletives.
2) Unconsciously drumming along on my desk to whichever song I happen to be listening to while waiting for code to compile / servers to start / etc.
I don't think I actually do either very often, but I worry about it. ;)
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#23I am surprised people comment on this "question" including me. Engineers are strange people.
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#24Amazing how you can almost always find a relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/228/
(also, why is this on the front page?)
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#25I am surprised people comment on this "question" including me. Engineers are strange people.
Uh, engineers are just people. They aren't any different from other people in the wild.
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#26>It is just me or is it that when engineers are programming and sitting behind a desk, they constantly shake their legs??
It's just you. I've worked in several teams and maybe one in five does that. So no "engineers" as in "the majority of them".
Occasionally of course (once an hour or a couple of hours), all do it and SHOULD do it. For the same reasons you are told to do it in an airplane. Thrombosis et all.
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#27IAMA under-desk leg jiggler, AMA. (P.S. I also chew pens.)
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#28Amazing how you can almost always find a relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/228/ (also, why is this on the front page?)
Brilliant! How do you guys always manage to find the relevant ones? There's hundreds of them, and I tried a few google searches using site:xkcd.com and some related terms and couldn't pull up this one.
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#29Venous and/or lymphatic systems use muscular contraction and movement for fluidity. It is specially important to counter gravity. The "need to move your lower extremities" is a natural instinct.
So it's not "an engineers thing". I'd say it's not even a "humans thing". Try "animals" (with lower extremities and veins and/or lymphs).
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or a vet.
Re: Why do engineers shake their legs behind a desk??
#30I think leg shaking is mostly harmless, the habits I worry about are: 1) Constant muttering stream of expletives. 2) Unconsciously drumming along on my desk to whichever song I happen to be listening to while waiting for code to compile / servers to start / etc. I don't think I actually do either very often, but I worry about it. ;)
If you are not doing "1" then you are doing it wrong :-)