RETAIL: $10
PRO: This desk cup holder, the YOY Home Office Table Desk Side Clip Beverage Holder provides a sturdy grip on most table tops that are at least 1” thick. The office desk cup holder will keep your cup off the desk, giving you more desk space and decreasing the likelihood of a spill (check current Amazon pricing here).
CONS: The clipping device does not grip well on desk tops that are thin or have a short lip. Even with a good grip, it may not hold large drinks very well, so hold off on those jumbo sized drinks.
IMPRESSION: Spills are not a possibility, they are an inevitability. I love having my cup off of my workstation and away from the cords of my mouse and dictaphone yet still within arms reach when my lips get parched. The flexibility of being able to position it anywhere around the edge of the desk is also a big improvement over the fixed cup holders that come built in with some desks.
LONG ANALYSIS
As a radiologist, I spend most of my day at a radiologist workstation interpreting images, dictating reports, and drinking my favorite caffeinated beverage– often simultaneously. The equipment at my workstation may be valued in the tens of thousands of dollar range and most of the equipment has a very low tolerance to getting wet.
Despite the expensive equipment at my workstation, a cup filled to the brim with Diet Mountain Dew sits precariously close to my dictation hand. I never worried about it, because I was careful and had never spilt a drink at a workstation. While I had seen many colleagues spill beverages at their workstation during residency and as a practicing radiologist, not once had I ever had such an accident. But if you keep your drink on your desk, the question is not if a spill will happen, the question is when a spill will happen, what will you do.
After 5 years of radiology training and 5 years into my practice, I suffered my first spill as I quickly put down my dictaphone so I could answer a phone call while staring at the computer monitor as I scrolled through an ultrasound exam. Luckily the cup was not completely filled and I was able put an understanding ultrasound technologist on hold as I quickly moved equipment out of harm’s way and then ran to the men’s room for some paper towels. I was lucky that nothing valuable was damaged other than my pride. I also learned an important lesson after that and started researching desk cup holders to prevent another accident from happening again.
Whether it be at home, in the clinic, at the office, or at the hospital, all physicians work at desks and workstations with valuable paperwork and potentially hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of expensive equipment. It is only a matter of time before a spill ruins expensive equipment or precious paperwork. Common sense tells us that the risk of a spill is not worth having beverages on your desk. But we all do it because we can not function without proper hydration and caffeination.
The solution to the problem is the same solution that sports stadiums, movie theaters and the vehicle industry figured out long ago: cup holders. It is simple and effective. While I have seen radiology workstations with built in cup holders, I have yet to find one that works. The problem is the way the cup holder is usually positioned beneath the plane of the desk of these pricey workstations. This sets you up for failure as your beverage sitting in a workstation’s included cup holder now places your drink at the exact position for the armrest of your chair to take a swing at the cup every time you turn to speak to a colleague or reach for the phone.
For those that like to drink from mugs, make sure to get their “mug friendly” version, the
YOY Drink Cup and Mug Holder Clip