Does it bother you when other people use your keyboard?

[1swt2gs]

Not sure where to put this.. keyboard or off topic.

My keyboard interests a lot of coworkers. Some of them game (MOBA, CS:GO. Others are from the IT department and ask how I can be efficient with a 60%.

I specifically got blank keys, so they will not use my board and so that other people are turned away from it. However, it seems to attract attention... They are impressed at the touch typing. Sometimes they want to test out the board, get a feel of the switches.

Some of these coworkers eat at their desk and use their keyboards while their fingers are all oily from the pizza they eat... 

[y11971alex]

I usually welcome them to use my keyboards. 

[ideus]

You can either, start into the nasty habit of eating at your work station, right over your keyboard; or just relax and let them try your treasure any time they like.

[chyros]

I try to make as many people as possile try out my keyboards and I give away keyboards constantly! xD

[1swt2gs]

Must be my OCD kicking in.. I constantly wipe down my boards and make sure my hands are not oily when typing on them

[nmur]

i actually loan my keyboards out to people in the office that have taken enough interest

[DALExSNAIL]

I love when people try out my keyboard at work. I always kind of hope they take interest in the hobby so I have more to talk about with them haha.


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[-musubi]

Must be my OCD kicking in.. I constantly wipe down my boards and make sure my hands are not oily when typing on them

I feel you here, I went to my first meetup recently and afterwards I didn't realize how dirty it can get with so many different hands touching it and typing on all your caps. I'm already afraid of myself getting it dirty so I'm constantly washing my hands before I use it haha.

You can always just use a standard dome board at work and keep your precious ones at home, but then again you can't show off to everyone else

[1swt2gs]

Must be my OCD kicking in.. I constantly wipe down my boards and make sure my hands are not oily when typing on them

I feel you here, I went to my first meetup recently and afterwards I didn't realize how dirty it can get with so many different hands touching it and typing on all your caps. I'm already afraid of myself getting it dirty so I'm constantly washing my hands before I use it haha.

You can always just use a standard dome board at work and keep your precious ones at home, but then again you can't show off to everyone else

I don't care about showing off, I just want a board to comfortably type on for 8+ hours a day.

I think my best bet is to revert back to stock black key caps without any artisans + fancy modifiers.

[mr626]

I don't mind too much as long as they don't have dirty fingers.

I even let my 2 year old use my keyboard occasionally. He's pretty clean for his age though.

[Adgar]

If that one  is a girl or my girlfriend. Oh,that is okay. I won't care about that. If that is a rude guys. For example. One of my roommate always hits his cellphone. Computer. And others keyboard ,He has broken his devices for many times,Oh . That must be a nightmare if I borrow my alienware or Cherry to him. I just can't imagine that  .

[Data]

You might be a germaphobe.   

Let people try your board.  It will help to grow the mech hobby.  You can always wipe your board off later if you feel like you have to.

[algernon]

People look at my keyboard often, and stand there in awe: an ErgoDox is a rare sight here. Then they notice I have blanks, and ask me how I find the keys. I tell them I touch type, and I made my own layout anyway.

They don't want to try my keyboard after these.

I wouldn't mind if they would, provided they have clean hands and fingers and the like - not because of germs, but I don't want any extra dirt in my keyboard, if I can avoid it.

[Enz0man]

It doesn't bother me, I just laugh cause it's funny seeing them struggle with the blank caps  )

[do_Og@n]

I usually have a spare keyboard or two that I bring in and let my coworkers use for a week or more. It doesn't bother me because it can always be cleaned.

However I do not like it when they try to use my headphones. Don't want their pimple juice and oily face all over my pleather pads.

[klennkellon]

When I have my Model M people always ask why I use such an old keyboard, then they try typing on it.

The Model M is really fun to play with even if you don't want to type on it, just pressing random keys will give you minutes of fun!

[Sifo]

it does bother me because I have blanks and a non-standard layout so they're gonna **** something up I guarantee it

[Findecanor]

Some of these coworkers eat at their desk and use their keyboards while their fingers are all oily from the pizza they eat... 

Eating lunch at the desk is a big no-no in my book. If I was a manager, I would not allow it. There is a designated eating area.
For me, it is mostly about sounds and smells. If you eat smoked shrimps with aïoli and leave the leftovers at your desk to ripen and ooze during the afternoon then you are a terrorist.

I don't mind other people using my keyboards, but they must be careful and respectful.
My current work-keyboard also has blank caps but that is only because of the scarcity of PBT key sets with Swedish legends.

[klennkellon]

I eat at my desk all of the time, just don't lean over your keyboard when you eat and wipe your hands before you start typing.

[rowdy]

I'd be more worried about people eating pizza in the office - the smell of pizza wafting gently around, making everyone hungry.

Sometimes I think about getting pizza delivered, or even jut a microwave pizza, just to see what happens.

In general it doesn't bother me when other people use my keyboards, in fact I am lending a keyboard to someone now, and he's been using it all day every day for at least a year.

[SBJ]

I try to make as many people as possile try out my keyboards and I give away keyboards constantly! xD

Why can't I have a friend like you? :/

Also: I have no problem with people using my keyboards. I wash my hands a lot and I don't eat at the computer so there's no gunk or anything. I clean my keyboards regularly or when needed.
If a child has used the keyboard however I wipe it with alcohol because kids have sticky fingers. Always.

[TypingNoob]

Its my board, they have no right to touch it!
Jokes aside, i make them wash their hands and apply alcohol before they touch my board.
I do that to my parents when their side of the internet goes down and they have to come to my room to use mine.
I do that to my brother. And he does the same thing to me when I use his board.
Its a vicious cycle.

[cookie]

I don't mind giving them my board to try it out. Only Exceptin are people who use Hand Lotion... That is a no go!

I hate fatty surfaces, i wash my hands every time it feels oily.

[Waffleknighter]

not at all, i think its fun to let ppl try it, especially if they dont use mechanical keyboards

[kekman]

i bring my keyboards into school sometimes to show friends who are also into the hobby. however, it irritates me a lot when people just randomly come up to mash keys without asking and just ask "is this good for gaming?"

[SBJ]

i bring my keyboards into school sometimes to show friends who are also into the hobby. however, it irritates me a lot when people just randomly come up to mash keys without asking and just ask "is this good for gaming?"

Haha oh wow. I don't know how well I would handle that.
My keyboards are NOT for mashing!

[tacnificent]

First hit is free is my policy.

[aptivaboy]

As long as they leave it neat and clean and treat it my property with respect, I'm fine with it. I actually got a couple of my students to (almost) become buckling spring converts after using my 1987 Model M!

[OfTheWild]

I'm of the group that if anyone at work even so much as glances at my keyboard I welcome them to try it out. I keep a very inexpensive old Ducky board I repaired from eBay at work just in case someone walks off with it.

[jerue]

For work: It doesn't, because I can't think of a single person who could actually use my keyboard, touch typing or not (Ergodox with Granite Elven kit).  )

[henz]

i trap them in this hobby, now every coworker has their own sweet keyboard which i have built

[HeeCh2ei]

Some people has extremely sweaty and greasy hands. They are smear that **** on everything they touch.
But they are may be allowed to try the board if I decide to sell it.

[czarek]

I don't care but they usually refuse to use mine because I either use blank keycaps, or hardly readable (black on black topre), and slightly altered layout of bottom row (from left to right: Caps Lock, Alt Gr, Alt, Space, Win, Alt Gr, Fn, Ctrl on a standard keyboard, caused by 15 years of using Mac as a primary platform).

[122obsessed]

Not at all! I'm quite happy if people use my keyboard especially the model m. As in the words of my sister "I like it because it is bouncy"

[kingpilcrow]

Nope

[mason]

Nope, I let my brother and girlfriend try out my HHKB. He was playing LoL and didn't like the control and backspace location.

My girlfriend tried it out with blank caps and I was impressed by her touch typing 

[rowdy]

First hit is free is my policy.

And how many people have you hit with your keyboard?

[Micdeez]

I am super OCD with all of mine.

But I do let people use it, but then after use, I will have my handy isopropyl alcohol and microfiber cloth to disperse the crap that came off their fingers.

[derb2k2]

i can definitely understand this apprehension. I hate to even think that I am transferring oil to my keycaps so I try to minimize this as much as possible.

The thought of someone else touching my keyboards does upset me a little, but usually I let anyone try my boards. I do check to see if they have greasy fingers and cut them off if so.

[lildragonbuns]

I'm using tai hao caps right now so I really don't care but once I acquire high quality keycaps, I'm going to make ppl wear gloves

[Geroximo]

What actually bothers me is when people touch my screen 

[henz]

What actually bothers me is when people touch my screen 

[Dihedral]

Blank caps. It's normally pretty amusing Biggest issue people who have reasonable touch-typing skills but are used to normal boards have is not using the nubs on the home row to position their hands, and therefore becoming 'offset' from where they should be. Although all their keystroke movements are correct, they hit the key to the left or to the right of the one they mean to each time and type a sentence of complete garbage. Bemusement follows quickly afterwards.

[Phenix]

its fine if its an smartphone monitor.. If its an TV definitly not

[chyros]

I like to have people try to type on keyboards with a particularly mystifying layout or really weird terminal caps  .

[tp4tissue]

That's the key to ergodox..

Even if you have blank caps on a tkl/104,  most non n00bs can still use it..


When they get to the ergodox,  Instantly gives up...

No one touches Tp4's keyboard. 

[Macsmasher]

I love it when others try my keyboards. I enjoy seeing the look on their faces. I'm all Topre now, so even my Cherry friends have that look haha. And I buy the sanitary wipes from Costco and keep a package by my desk. Just clean the caps off every week or so. Definitely not OCD about it.

[aptivaboy]

Sorry to dredge up an old thread, but I thought I'd echo something I posted previously. I use a 1987 genuine IBM Model M at work. I bought if off of the Bay of Evil, obtained a PS2 to USB converter and starting clicking away. It plugs into a Dell laptop that the school outfits every classroom with. Yeah, that probably sounds odd, a full sized keyboard plugged into a 15 inch laptop, but anyhow... My students hate the noise... Until they need to use my computer. Then, they type on it and voila! Another Model M aficionado. School let out last week and during finals several kids needed to use my computer to type up papers, print assignments, and so on. Each one loved that old Model M and one was seriously talking about buying one, stating how much better it typed than the cheap crapola that comes with modern computers.

To answer the original poster's question, I love it when my students use my board because they wind up loving the old stuff. Retro is cool.

[ideus]

Reading some of the fellows comments, I found they reflect my own experience. I see people converting into mechanicals just by typing on any of my keyboards.

[derb2k2]

i can definitely understand this apprehension. I hate to even think that I am transferring oil to my keycaps so I try to minimize this as much as possible.

The thought of someone else touching my keyboards does upset me a little, but usually I let anyone try my boards. I do check to see if they have greasy fingers and cut them off if so.

I should've mentioned with my comment that I have OCD (diagnosed) and wash my hands more so than I should. Nothing on the excessive side though, but yea

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