I knew this blog might not win awards as the “Bring Some Sunshine Into Your Day” site, but I had no idea I was going to launch into a rant quite so quickly. But aaaarghhhhh!
I went to buy a chair today. Nothing special, just a desk chair so that I’d have something a little more comfortable to use while I sit at my desk & write. I’ve been sitting on an old stool, so pretty much anything has to be more comfortable that that, correct?
Off I head to my local “Office Mega Box”, and start wandering around the desk chairs. Boy, these things are more expensive than I would have imagined. I don’t need anything so special, I’m not looking for an Aeron or anything like that (even if I could afford it). But even the low end ones were more than I wanted to spend ideally.
Anyway, an “Office Mega Box” employee heads over, and asks what I want. And I explain; something with arms, and that has some back suppport. Nothing too difficult, you’d think? So he looks me up and down, then announces (in fractured English I should add) that none of the cheaper chairs would work since I was too big for them. Now, I’m not skinny, but I’m hardly the biggest guy around, and these chairs should be able to hold me.
He starts showing me chairs in the $400 range, and I explain, pleasantly, that I need something cheaper. Clearly disappointed in me, he turns to another customer and starts to help them as I continue wandering around. I find a chair that looks OK, and that won’t require me to eat Ramen noodles for three months in order to pay for it. And I sit down to try it.
Whizzz … “Office Mega Box” boy scoots over, and tells me, rather loudly, to not sit in that chair. Why? Because he’s already explained to me that I’m too big for a chair like that, and I might break it!
Slightly dumbfounded, I sat for a second and he says it again. At which point, I lost it a little. His English may not have been too good, but both of the words I used before storming out were pretty short ones. He understood those.
Which is all very well, but I still don’t have a new chair, and my back hurts. Now what to do?