Sitters and Standers

Alvin Chang turns the simple question of who sits at work into an interactive map of American labor. A short questionnaire gives you a place in the picture before the story compares physical demands with autonomy, education, income, and other divides.

What is Sitters and Standers?

The piece begins with your own working posture, then asks about conditions such as climbing, crouching, heat, remote work, break flexibility, and education requirements. Your answers become a small foothold in a much larger field of occupations, split broadly between jobs done sitting and jobs done standing. As the sequence advances, that tidy chair-line reveals messier differences in physical exposure, control over the workday, pay, and who tends to occupy each kind of job. The personal setup keeps a data-heavy labor story from feeling like a spreadsheet in sensible shoes.

What you can do there

• Answer a short workplace questionnaire
• Compare sitting and standing occupations
• Follow the visual essay through labor patterns

Why we picked it

A familiar bodily detail becomes a remarkably legible route into class and workplace inequality. The opening questions make the comparison personal, while the occupation view keeps the scale visible: one answer about your day sits among a whole country's patterns of labor.

How to get the most from it

Press Start, answer the workplace questions as closely as you can, and use the earnings opt-out if you prefer. Move through the sequence with Next, then zoom the occupation field when a cluster or job catches your eye. The questions are a viewing lens, not a personality test.

Good to know

The story opens without a sign-in and offers a separate video version from the first screen. It asks about income and working conditions, but the documented flow includes an option not to answer the earnings question. Read the sit-or-stand split as a way to compare job patterns, not as medical or career advice.

Who made it, and when?

Alvin Chang is the credited creator or organization. The earliest supported launch date we found is November 2024.