Everyone knows that when you’re a receptionist or manning a desk you either are standing up, sitting down, or leaning against whatever can hold you weight.  But what people don’t know is how to cope with being a receptionist in a situation where the desk is made for sitting but there is no chair!  It’s supposed to make you look more approachable when you’re standing around looking like you’re straining to do everything you’re trying to do rather than sitting in a chair using the desk that is made for sitting in the way it was designed to.

So you are forced to stand, but lo and behold, you’re not four feet tall, so 85% of the surface is out of reach and the other 10% is unusable due to line of sight issues.  That leaves approximately 2.5% of the desk you used to be able to use for use.  The other 2.5% is taken up by the normal useless junk that you’re required to keep on your desk, such as business cards and phones — you never had that to begin with anyway.

There are a number of solutions to tackle this problem.  Pick the most viable solution for your situation:

1. Bring the counter to you.

This solution requires you to engineer the desk or counter in such a fashion that it rises approximately three feet into the air.  You can use anti-gravity machinery or exquisitely stylish cherry-wood wedges to accomplish this.  It’d be like you’re sitting… but you’re standing!

2. Bring you to the counter.

This solution requires you to invent the marmalade that Alice drinks in Alice in Wonderland.  Just make sure you drink just enough to shrink to the size of the desk.  But I guess you can drink enough so that you can swim around in the tears of lazy receptionists who don’t like to stand up while being a receptionist.

3. Pretend like you’re sitting.

Who says you can’t sit without a chair?  You can crouch or sit on an imaginary chair, or develop a jet engine system to keep yourself comfortably levitated at the elevation of your counter.

4. Get a new counter/table.

The most sensible solution of all is to get a new counter.  But sensibility is more expensive than a new counter, so you’ll most likely have to forgo this solution nine times out of ten.

5. Bring the surface of the counter to you.

I suppose this is most sensible low-cost solution.  But this means you spend money on ancillary items when you could just solve your problem by using the chair you already bought instead of raised surfaces to solve a problem you didn’t need to create.  But, who cares, it’s just money, right?

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Another challenge that is presented is your ability to be sneaky about things.  While in a chair, you would be able to sneak a snack or a peek at your cell phone just to holla at your homies.  There are only two presentable solutions available to tackle this problem:

1. Hide under the counter/desk.

Hiding under the counter/desk allows you to temporarily shirk any responsibilities you may have been forced to do.  You can hide from customers, managers, other employees — its like a safe haven for about five minutes while you sext that hottie you met at the bar last night.

2. Make the counter into a fort.

Nothing says “fuck you” to customers better than stacking up large amounts of random shit so high into the air so they can’t see you anymore.  Who says you need to help anyone but yourself?  You need some alone time randomly during the day after you’re creeping on the hot guy/girl trying on a shirt in front of the fixture instead of the fitting room?  Time to get some boxes and staple a handwritten “Do Not Disturb” sign so people can’t see you anymore, and don’t come-a-knocking.