Last updated on March 25th, 2011 at 05:32 pm

Having just taken a good look at the small office that we use here at Forest Software I recognised that there is a problem with electric and data cables laying across the floor – like many other small offices ours has sockets on the walls and desks in the middle of the room.

Fortunately we have not been in the position of having anyone trip over the cables (they are taped to the carpet where they cross the floor) but I have decided to look at sorting out any possible hazards on the next day or so.

There are two elements that I plan on addressing, the first is to get a rubber cable bridge so that the cables are safely tucked out of the way between the sockets on the wall and the edge of the desk.  The next element is one that many small business owners might forget about, and to be honest it’s not something that has occurred to me until recently when my foot hit a cable under the desk – this is the idea of bundling the cables together into a single “string” using a cable tidy.  I have seen these in several hardware shops in the past, normally sold for AV equipment, but looking online it seems that I can buy a cable tidy from Amazon, one of my favourite online shops (as you may have realised from previous posts). 

Researching a little more online it seems that to be ultra-safe it is best use two tidies, one for the mains cables and a second for the data cables (monitors, network, usb etc).  By doing this it reduces the risk of the mains cables generating interference in the data cables – I would have thought that all the cables would have been shielded, but in my view it is better to be safe than sorry.

So, it’s out with the company card tomorrow and place an order for several cable tidies ( at least two for each desk depending on the length ).  This will have two benefits, the office will look tidier with the cables bundled together and it will also be a safer environment to work in.

I may even suggest this to a client that has a phone and data patch panel where the cables are always in a mess – a short length or two of cable tidy could sort out the wiring leading to their panel and make it easier to use.