THE QUESTION: Do lawyers and accountants have the most unhygienic desks?
A study published this week has revealed the shocking news that two-thirds of computer keyboards in British offices contain germs, with the remaining third of keyboards presumably either germicidal or permanently out of contact with the bacteria-transmitter that is the human fingertip.
The study also found that lawyers and accountants have the dirtiest desks, while social workers are the most likely to leave mouldy food around. Colds and flus beckon, say the authors.
Sadly, however, these discoveries were not contained within a peer-reviewed, Lancet-published-type study by scientists dedicated to examining the public health effects of hot-desking. Higher rates of illnesses among lawyers and accountants are not indeed a widely observed medical phenomenon.
In fact, the widely reported conclusions were the genius of office supplies firm Viking, which took to analysing swabs sent in by workers, then muttered something about people in open-plan offices “coming down with illnesses” at this time of year. Oh yes and “buy now . . . order from our great range of workplace cleaning products” – perhaps the screen cleaning kit, the “telephone wipe” or the full range of bathroom soap dispensers.
What Viking fails to appreciate, naturally, is that the manky desk is the deliberate tactic of the reluctant hot-desker. Leave your workspace as messy as you can make it and eventually no one will dare sit there except you. What one loses in hygiene points, one gains in desk tenure.
Still, if you have to answer “e) there are some that are growing fur on them” to the office crockery question in Viking’s “dirty desk” quiz, perhaps it is time to get spraying and wiping.
STATUS UPDATE
Dirty threat:Qantas says its Irish CEO Alan Joyce received a letter calling him "foreign filth" and saying the airline's unions would fight him. Unions say the letter is "unsubstantiated".
Freak kindness:Mattel has allied with a US anti-bullying group to promote a line of "freaky" teen dolls, Monster High – its number three doll brand behind Barbie and Disney Princess.
Debt lecture:David Cameron's conference speech was destined to tell consumers to pay off their credit cards, until it was pointed out that this could cause a "paradox of thrift".
Dictionary corner: the Great Stagnation
The European and US economies are heading for "the great stagnation", according to Goldman Sachs – or at least they have a 40 per cent chance of a prolonged economic flatline. Goldman economist Jose Ursua says it's "a plausible risk and legitimate concern". The Great Stagnationis also the name of a recent e-book by Tyler Cowen, which theorises that all the low-hanging economic fruit capable of fuelling a growth boom – such as raising educational levels – have mostly been exhausted.
Ursua, having analysed 93 stagnations over the last 150 years, characterises the typical signs as average growth of 0.5 per cent in GDP, underperforming stock markets and “high and sticky” unemployment.
90,000– The number of bikes purchased under the Cycle to Work scheme since it was launched by the previous government in 2009. Everything's more attractive with a tax break.
These corporate people feel they can throw money at things and just win –Karen Murphy, landlady of the Red, White and Blue pub in Southsea, Hampshire, in England, celebrates her victory in the European Court of Justice, which ruled she could bypass Sky and use a Greek decoder to access Premier League football matches
