My back is killing me.
Now, the initial reason has to do with introducing a new lift in my weight routine—my form was fine, but the initial weight was too heavy, hence the strain—but the strain is exacerbated by the fact that my current desk chair is. . . no longer adequate.
It’s been more-or-less fine for years, but over the years it’s moved more toward the “less” side of the spectrum. Because I’m working my second job from home, I’m spending a LOT of time in the chair, and thus have a lot of time to reflect on its inadequacies. And while I don’t expect a chair to fix my exercise mistakes, I also don’t want it to magnify the effects of those mistakes.
So: search for a chair. Search search search. Read the reviews read the reviews read the reviews, consider the features, select, delete, et cetera.
So: I’ve found what seems to be a decent chair. I like that the arms are padded (current chair? no) and flip back, I like (I think) the syncro-tilt, and I like the price.
The problem? There’s only one review. Positive, but still: one.
I’ve search for more reviews, but no luck. The price isn’t outrageous—130 bucks or so—but this is out of “what-the-hell” territory. There were a couple of other chairs I looked closely at, and the reviews were helpful in deciding to eliminate them: the negative/meh reviews were over twenty percent and a fair number of them were quite recent and about the same problem, while the in-depth 4- and 5-star reviews were all older. That there are negative reviews doesn’t bother me, but if out of 300-400 reviews a solid 25 percent are negative, well, I think I’ll look at something else.
(I bought a small vacuum cleaner recently, and in trying to figure out which of two to buy, that the negative reviews were recent and pointed toward the same problems with one machine pushed me toward the other. Which works fine, in case you’re wondering.)
Anyway, the specs on this chair seem decent, but then, so did those on the chairs I ultimately eliminated. *Sigh*
I have to admit that were I to have the cash, I’d buy a Herman Miller. Not necessarily the Aeron chair—I’ve never sat in one, and you betta believe that before I plunk down a thousand bucks I’m plunking my ass in that chair—but this Eames lounge chair, and precisely because I have sat in it.
Sister, it is worth every penny.
When I was in grad school I took a course in human rights, which meant that, in doing research for my papers, I had to trudge from the Social Science tower over to one of the upper floors of the law library, where the human rights collection was located. It was there that I discovered this amazing chair, tucked in a windowed niche—and it was to there I returned, long after the class had finished, to sit and read and, on more than one occasion, doze.
(Sometimes it wouldn’t be there, and I’d find it had been dragged somewhere else on the floor. I clearly wasn’t the only person who liked that chair.)
I became a little obsessed, so much so that I finally flipped the chair over and ripped the fraying product manufacturer tag off. Then I went on a hunt through furniture store after furniture store—this was pre-internet—until a woman at a place in north Minneapolis said “oh, that’s a Herman Miller. There’s a store in [Edina? Hopkins? one of the nearby suburbs].” I then got on my bike (no car) and rode out to that store, frayed product tag in hand, and began the process of ordering myself a Herman Miller.
That was, oh, over twenty years ago, so it was nowhere near $1800 bucks, and that I’d buy it directly from this store would mean I could probably get the cheapest version for less than 500 bucks. (I remember the person who worked with me as professional, helpful, and a bit bemused at the sight of this broke-ass grad student trying to figure out how to afford a freakin’ Eames chair.)
I didn’t buy the chair: incredibly, that I didn’t want the cheapest chair was kept me from following through on the purchase. No, I decided, I’d get a Herman Miller when I could [afford to] get exactly what I wanted.
I still have the product brochure, by the way, though the tag seems to have gone missing.
So, huh. Is there a point to this story? No, no point, other than, perhaps to point out (ha!) that I am willing to lay out crazy money for chair I know is comfortable.
But if I don’t know? Then 130 bucks seems a lot.
AbsurdBeats 