A wonderful unique feature is a bomb-resistant pod for shielding from the market madness and preserving profits. Bomb-resistant desks Ottawa is considering installing blast-resistant desk in Canadian embassies around the world, a Calgary-based manufacturer says. Washington is already using one in Iraq and Canada's Defence Department gave the thumbs up after exploding piles of TNT beside the desks, designer Ron Quigley said. Blast resistant workstation. (Courtesy Gunnar) "We've already installed product at the site of the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad," Quigley told the Canadian Press news agency in an interview. The desks made from blast-proof materials are an "obvious advantage," department tester Sheri Hlady wrote in a report after trying to blow them up with 110 kilograms of TNT. She placed the explosives both 20 and 30 metres from typical wooden desks and Quigley's product. Hlady wrote that a blast-hardened desk held together well while a regular desk was reduced to "pieces and shards." The desk's protection includes a "personal protection pod" under the desk with reinforced steel tubes, although there may not be enough warning to use the pod before a terrorist's bomb detonates. Wooden dummies representing office workers near the desks were seriously damaged in the tests. But if the office worker survives the initial blast, there my be enough time to enter the pod before the building collapses. Hlady said the pod did well in tests squeezing it with a 37-tonne industrial press. Structural components of the Personal Protection Pod are designed to withstand 40 tons of pressure. (Courtesy Gunnar) However, she noted that tests conducted outdoors on the prairie were in a far different setting than the cluttered working environment of offices where blasts ricochet off walls and launch common objects like missiles. A first aid kit, water supply and transponder to help rescue officials locate the desk after a building collapse could also be added to the package, Quigley said. He began his company, Gunnar Manufacturing Inc., in 1979 by focusing on ways to silence noisy office equipment and make computer furniture more user-friendly. The Sept. 11 attacks switched his attention to the desks, bullet-proof chairs and other protective measures.