My New Office Chair
2020-05-19 21:22 - General
With pandemic and lockdown forcing a work from home scenario, I'm spending a lot more time at my desk in front of my computer. Very shortly after that started, I started feeling a bunch of upper back pain. I was pretty sure it was down to the instant switch from near-100% full time standing desk at work to full days of sitting desk at home. (I've got a really nice desk, but it's a standard desk that isn't set up for standing at.)
I decided to get myself a new nicer chair. It's been a few years since I went almost standing only at the office, but I spent plenty of time working in a chair before that. And my "office" chair at home is both several years old and from the lowest quality tier, before all that wear.
I can confirm that the chair was mostly to blame, because it took a long time for the replacement to come. The old chair has fixed arms, which form part of the support structure for the back. I took them off and flipped them around, so they still held the back up, but they followed the shape from seat to back, rather than rising up to make a potential armrest. Being fixed, they were at a fixed height. One that was much too high. I was scrunching my shoulders to fit around them.
That said, this chair took a full month (ordered April 14, arrived May 15) to show up. I have no idea whether to consider that as awful as it seems, or to give a lot of slack for the current global situation. I definitely don't appreciate the completely opaque communications of the seller. First I reached out because the passed "14 days" long end of the estimate turned out to be 14 business days (which feels intentionally selected for misinterpretation), not passed. Once that date finally slipped, they gave another several-week window for possible delivery, but nothing more.
Now, it was a great deal. I paid $324 (plus $34 for carpet casters), which is well under half of the $900 for a brand new one. It was listed as "open box" but this is clearly a used/refurbished chair — plenty of light scratches, but all on the sides/bottom, so I can live with it. The price where I bought it has gone up to $374 in the intervening month. Only since then I learned about National Office Interiors and Liquidators, who are currently listing the same chair (but with the full-option arms, mine only raise/lower) for $299 (though only in grey, every other color is $399!). And more honestly listed as condition "used".
Either way, this is a quality chair, and I'm already happy with it.
