(Planet Me)
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
 
The Seat of Productivity




"Topstar PO40B2BC6E Point 40 Comfort Office Swivel Chair with Orthopedically Shaped Seat - Blue


A friend of mine refers to chairs as objects of desire, not shiny or glittery, but somehow, soft black holes of all encompassing comfort. "The chair I'm going to die in", she says.

A good chair, even one as apparently mundane as a computer desk chair, is the literal seat of productivity. With these, things get done. Conversations happen. Decisions get made. Lives get changed. A good chair makes it all possible.

Aside from the construction of this chair - it comes part-assembled - the whole sitting business of it is easy. You lower your body on bended knee to fabric and plastic and all of sudden, your bottom rubs a groove into the floor of the chair. Naturally, as you would expect, there are the vaccum powered adjustable heights - up / down! - and swivels and tiltable backrests. You can't adjust the armrests. But aside from that, this is a great chair. Sure, it isn't made out of baby seal pelts or out of have lasers or, as all princesses have, a removable compartment full of blasters, but then again,that's not what this chair does.. It is comfortable to sit on, and feels almost sexy.

It's not easy to make. These chairs never are. The instructions make Ikea look like Michael Bay in their obtuse design. Even the art, for example, of placing numbers on the steel struts and supports and letters on the screws and nuts and bolts would help immensely. After about an hour of fudging and bodging I finally stopped because I'd got it right : though I reckon you could do this in about 10 minutes if you had a good sense of instructions.

But then, like a masculine form of childbirth, without the blood, the drugs, the screaming or the weird smells, you sit on it. And you forget. Hmm. Comfy. There There. Time for a cup of tea. A nice cup of tea, and a sit down. Before the keyboard warrior in the post industrial economy begins again, greasing the wheels of productivity, and maximising our opportunigoals, in cubicle farms and service centres. Back to work minions! You have nothing to lose but your incredibly comfy chairs.

Oh, and yes, this is a fine chair : comfortable, durable, reliable, and flexible. Probably the best chair I've sat on in 15 years of working for The Man. The seat of productivity.

- posted by Mark @ 10:18 pm
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