Friday, July 20, 2012

Saga of the Chair.

For 6 years, I sat in a chair that would nearly tip over if I sat too far back. It didn't move up or down but was, luckily, stuck at a proper height. It was square, with faded light blue upholstery and rusted metal legs and arms. The chair cushion was stained from coffee, cookie crumbs, and chocolate bars. It was not comfortable, but it wasn't painful to sit there. I inherited from my predecessor. Who knows how old it really was. I have never seen one like it before in any office supply store.

When I asked for a new chair, I was told: "We could buy you one, but let's get one from surplus instead."

My new-to-me chair won't move up or down. I have a choice of sitting on the floor, or sitting hunched over like Bartleby the Scrivener, banging my knees into the edge of my desk. I should have kept Old Chair. At least, I knew what I had with Old Chair.

"Let's get you back on that surplus list. Maybe another batch of chairs will turn up soon. "

Guess I will be heading over to the local Office Despot to shell out some hard earned summer school money.

-Kunstnik

13 comments:

  1. I had a chair saga this year, too! Mine kept shedding hardware from beneath, until one day it snapped and deposited me, flat on my ass, on the floor. My department head was kind enough to donate one of hir meeting room chairs as a replacement. It's comfy enough, but its pneumatic height adjuster is, shall we say, temperamental. Sometimes it lowers me dooown as I sit, sometimes it hoists me up mid-typing without warning so my knees bang up under the desk...

    I, too, am pondering a trip to Ye Olde Ikea to take charge of a replacement. Enough with the surplus list purgatory.

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  2. I had a chair that would dump me on the floor, from the front. After over a year of asking, it finally got replaced when I pointed out it wouldn't meet OSHA standards. THAT got a rise out of them!

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    1. Good strategy, Frod! Unlucky for me, OSHA doesn't apply Across the Seas. If it did, I'd have a hell of a lot more to complain about than some stupid chair...

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  3. Kunstnik's description of Old Chair reminds me of Noam Chomsky's MIT office chair: seat split and taped, arms held together with gaffer tape. The difference is Chomsky could have had better furniture, but he liked the crap he had; Kunstnik is stuck with castoffs because his school is too Goddamned cheap even to do the right thing.

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    1. I was surprised how your comment reminds me of a colleague. He notes that some (according to him, all) great scientists are egotistical pains in the ass. He wants to be a great scientist so he goes out of his way to be a complete piece of shit. He thinks this is a first step towards a Nobel prize.

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    2. Are you sassing the Chomsky?

      Please don't tell me you are giving CHOMSKY the business.

      His army of 90 pound grad students will destroy you!!!!

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  4. yep, I bought mine at a thrift store. A bit worn on the arms.

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  5. Assuming you are not an adjunct, you are going to sit in that chair for n hours a day for the next nn years. Shell out some dough and buy the bestest possible chair (Herman-Miller's Mirra is my choice).
    Or, as I did, hypnotize your dean into buying you one.

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  6. 1. Borrow a chair from a room down the hall when nobody's looking.
    2. Forget to return it.
    3. Use a bike lock to permanently attach the chair to your desk.

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  7. My chair would tilt sideways. I replaced it (from surplus, of course). That one also tilted sideways. I replaced that one (again from surplus). It took three chairs for me to realize my floor slopes down and it wasn't the chair!

    If you have to sit like Bartleby, you should behave like Bartleby: you could prefer not to do many a task!

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  8. I snitched one from the incoming faculty member prior to their arrival, and left my crappy chair in their office-to-be- Seniority and finders keepers.

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  9. My chair is ugly as all hell, the arm falls off sometimes, and it squeaks like hell. But it's comfortable. I'm terrified to ask for a new one. :/

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  10. I lucked out. The guy who had the job (and thus office and chair) before me had a back problem and had gotten them to buy him a fancy chair. Luckily none of my colleagues were as smart as Brown-Cow.

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