The story of the three chairs. And counting...

In the sub, I have a desk.  And that’s fine, I can do my work for one section of the office, take notes when I need to, I have a phone, and a computer, and several forms and information to use, and give out.

And… I have a running battle of late with… 

The chairs.

We had a pretty nice office chair, sort of a red colored seat, with black, and it was pretty cushy.  It has started showing its age, but I still like it.  However, I showed up about 3 or so weeks ago, and there was a new chair.  A black one, with a taller seat.  I thought I would just adjust it.  No dice, it was as low as it was going to get.  So, I sat.  

And realized, it also was tipped forward slightly.  Just enough that I felt like I was going to slide out, if I sat for any length of time.  I didn’t realize it, but I was compensating by leaning back, and holding myself “up” by my toes, sort of ‘on pointe’, if you will.  This did NOT work.  I ended up with cramps in my back and legs by the end of the day. 

So, the next week I used the red colored chair I’d mentioned before.  It was sitting in the back, I just rolled it up to the desk and sat.  SQUEEE-AAAAK!

Hm.  Well, no one is here, and I don’t care, so I will just use it.  And what a symphony of noise ensued!  Groaning, squeaking, grinding noises, some low pitched whines… And then 2 deputies came in to catch up on paperwork.  After about 15 minutes or so, there was a comment about the noise. 

My sin?  I would turn my head from the computer to the papers in front of me, and then click the computer mouse, and look up again.  This basically made a continuous Squee-click-Squank, about every minute or two.  After a comment about what was going to happen to the chair if it kept up, (nothing mentioned about the user, but I really thought I should do something), I quickly went back to the black chair.  And a mild case of leg cramps.

So, last week, I used a non-office-y, plain old chair with padding, that they have sitting out for back office visitors.  Sort of a gray-pink think, with gray metal legs.  

It worked… Except it grips like iron, so when someone would come to the desk, and I would need to come up and talk to them, I would have to do a rather heavy push against the desk to move the chair back.  Once, the desk, rather than the chair, moved. Not much, but enough to convince me I need to find a different chair.

Next week, the deputies will find one of the conference table chairs missing…