Many of today's youth are kids who grew up being constantly bombarded by different stimuli, with the world moving around them all at once. News is available 24/7 rather than just at 6:00 PM, information is a few keystrokes and a GOOooooOOOoogle search away, and there are a thousand things clamoring for their attention.

Then, they get a job. And it all just stops.

To combat this feeling of loss, I present the Self-Adjusting Desk.

All normal desklike items are mounted to a set of arms that are in turn hooked to actuators on the desktop and within the cubicle wall (optional). Loose items are placed on shelves that are also mounted.

Every 20 minutes (or at some other pre-set interval) the bulletin board, the computer monitor, the picture frames, the in and out trays all move about to new locations.

Thus, the young worker in the boring burn-out job suddenly has new information to process, and can actually play games with himself along the lines of "I hear ringing, where has that phone gone to now?"
-- shapu, May 03 2006

And it is perfect training for middle age. When you can't find your ........
-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 03 2006


<sings> I hear ringing, but there's no-one there...

-- moomintroll, May 03 2006


[Galbinus_Caeli]

...... butt with both hands????
-- zigness, May 03 2006


Where's that fecking arse-elbow differentiator? I'm sure I left it right..here..
-- methinksnot, May 03 2006


[zigness] its a fill in the blank. the item in question can change several times an hour. For me it is usually my coffee cup. For my wife, it is her glasses. But the dog's leash, the car keys, the digital camera, my jacket, her calendar, any of the four tv remote controls all will go missing on a daily basis.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 04 2006


That happens to me all the time, I'm contantly losing things, especially on the job site. I just say the magic words, "Where the f*$k is my ____?!" In most cases it just appears. Pretty amazing, really.
-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, May 04 2006


My wife and I sometimes reduce that to a certain sigh. To which the other will often respond "on the counter", "by your computer", or whatever.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 04 2006


Clearly then I am not a master of invoking the saints of finding things. To have reduced it down to a sigh, I'm in awe. You must be my teacher and I will learn the ways of sigh location at your knee.
-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, May 05 2006


To manage the sigh location, one must have a spouse who has learned to notice the location of things that you are likely to misplace.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, May 05 2006


Unnecessary moving of things. [+]
-- Letsbuildafort, May 05 2006


unnecessary Moving of things. [?]
-- methinksnot, May 05 2006


unnecessary moving of Things [!]
-- Canuck, May 05 2006


Of unnecessary moving things [!?]
-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, May 05 2006


And here I thought that I had made a (brief, I admit) case that this unnecessary movement was, in fact, quite necessary.

<peer pressure>[!?!]</pp>
-- shapu, May 05 2006


There are a couple other invocations:

GOOD: "Please God, help me find the _____."

EVIL: (to nearest victim) "I know you stole my _____."

Both seem to work well, the latter requiring an apology, unless your going for evil points >:)
-- Whirligig, May 05 2006



random, halfbakery