The American Cancer Society recently conducted a 14 year study on the health of over 123,000 people. The study found that people who sat more than 6 hours a day were more likely to die during the study (20% more likely for men, 40% for women), were at bigger risks for cardiovascular disease, obesity, type 2 diabetis, depression and a specific type of butt cancer.

While reading the article I thought “well no shit not exercising and sitting on my fat ass all day is bad for me” the study specifically showed that “sitting for extended periods of time does significant damage to human health that cannot be undone by exercising. Sitting for several hours each day is bad for you, like smoking is bad for you, regardless of whether you do healthful activities, too.” Having worked at a call center, this study doesn’t surprise me at all.

My last job was working at a call center for a cable company that everybody hates and will remain unnamed for the duration of this story. I have worn a lot of different no-college-degree-required office job hats in my adult life but this was the first time in a few years I had been in a call center. Twice during my training was I reprimanded for moving around. The first time I was yelled at by a lead for standing up and pacing a bit during a phone call. Her rationalization was that by standing up my voice would project over the cube walls and disrupt other employee’s work. Nothing makes you feel like you’re in a shitty job like being told you don’t get to stand up. I still hate her to this very day.

The second time I was reprimanded for scooting around in my office chair. This one really hurt because office chairs are meant to be scooted around. The only reason those chairs have wheels is because office work is soul crushing and scooting around in them provides the tiniest bit of pleasure and a scant illusion of freedom in a corporate drone’s soul. When I protested that “chair travelling”(their term) was my god given right and protected by the constitution, they explained that this was outlawed in the entire building. The reason this law went into effect is because last year alone, 4 people in the building injured themselves falling out of office chairs.

They didn’t dive head first into the chairs. They didn’t stand on a chair and attempt to backflip off the chair. They were just sitting on the chair, a mere 1.5 feet off the ground. They fell, a whopping one and a half feet to the hard, unforgiving office carpet and suffered injuries that required them to go to the hospital.

I’m no scientist and I can’t tell you if call center work creates the morbidly obese, tweety bird sweater wearing middle age lumps of middle age lethargy that fill it’s cubicles or merely attracts them but with this study one thing is certain. They’re an endangered species. If we’re not careful the North American Call Center Rep will go extinct and be completely replaced by the leaner, more agressive Indian Call Center rep with it’s keen survival instincts and ability to do yoga while programming a universal remote over the phone.