Have Desk, Will Travel
A new era of work-life balance.
It’s hard to live in Bozeman during the workweek. Every day, instead of setting off with the sun, we shuffle into buildings, jam keyboards, and suck in blue light until it radiates us stupid. We pass the hours begrudgingly, occasionally staring out the window to yearn for the great outdoors. For most of us, outdoor exercise is limited to a short stretch before or after work. If only there was a way to better combine our work and play.
Of course, the workplace has seen some advancements in recent years. First there was the standing desk, to better improve our posture and limit the amount of time spent sitting. Then came the exercise-ball chair to keep the legs and core toned, the elliptical desk bike so you could pedal your feet while you pedaled the business, and finally, the treadmill desk.
Recently, the deskercise trend has taken a new turn. Though it resembles something you might see in a futuristic film, the latest invention could have Bozeman businesses booming—both in and out of the office. We’re talking about the running desk, a.k.a. the DeskJetter.
“People can now respond to emails, attend meetings, check stocks, and post to social media all while running up to History Rock."
“All these years, engineers have been designing ways to bring exercise into the office,” says Hugh Jenird, DeskJetter owner and founder. “I thought, what if we tackled this problem from the other way around?” According to Jenird, the realization came to him on a trail run up Sypes Canyon. “I was out for a routine late-morning jog, when my phone began to buzz,” he recalls. “I’d apparently forgotten about an important conference call.”
Frantic that his clandestine 18-hour workweek would be discovered, Jenird immediately loaded a green-screen background. Once he knew he was in the clear, he started running again. “My FitBit was going off,” he says. “There’s no way I was going to ruin my weekly step count.” By tempering his breath and pretending to listen to his associates’ points, he was able to attend the entire meeting and not raise any suspicion of his whereabouts. “I managed to keep a sub-10-minute-mile pace the whole time,” he says.
Over the following few weeks, Jenird tried it a couple more times, to make sure his idea was foolproof. He got a satellite phone and plugged into meetings from the top of Mount Baldy and the dam at Mystic Lake. At the end of both sessions, his colleagues were none the wiser. “That’s when I realized I needed to get going on this thing,” Jenird says.
Not suprisingly, the demand for the DeskJetter is skyrocketing.
He spent the next year collaborating with Martel Construction, Uphill Pursuits, and Stone Glacier to design a contraption that could fasten to your body comfortably while securely holding a laptop, pen & paper, and spill-proof coffee mug. After nearly a dozen prototypes, Jenird landed on the model he was looking for. In early January 2021, the DeskJetter was officially born, along with the company slogan: The mobile office just got a whole lot more mobile.
The desk itself is built from a carbon-fiber core, complete with a dual-suspension system that minimizes rebound while enhancing stabilization. It has hybrid velcro-magnet attachments to secure items in place. With built-in solar panels and a streamlined battery pack, the desk stays charged for up to eight hours. Jenird’s next project is implementing a dynamic home-office background, with ambient noise and a dog occasionally wandering through. “The green screen doesn’t work indefinitely,” he explains. “Co-workers start to wonder what you’re hiding.”
Not suprisingly, the demand for the DeskJetter is skyrocketing. “It’s all about efficiency,” Jenird says. “People can now respond to emails, attend meetings, check stocks, and post to social media all while running up to History Rock. Remember when those took up different parts of your day?”
This revolutionary thinking has led to a breakthrough in the labor/leisure dynamic. So much so that Strava added a new datapoint to their activity measurements: AS/Mi (Average Sales per Mile). Now, in addition to being the KOM (King Of the Mountain), you can also become CEO-OM (CEO Of the Mountain) by earning the most revenue while on a specific section of trail. Ty Niedick, Bozeman developer and amateur tennis player, quickly became the first CEO-OM of the Bridger Foothills Trail with an impressive $420,000 AS/Mi. “I closed Bozeman’s biggest hotel deal before I even made it to Ross Pass,” Niedick says. “The DeskJetter takes the ABCs of sales to a new whole level. Before it was ‘Always Be Closing,’ but now I live by the ABCDs: All Businessmen Carry Desks.”
Visit deskjetter.com for more information.
