The Importance of a Good Chair

When the name Jason Calacanis comes up in conversation and he’s not within earshot, something unflattering is always said about him. Ah, that Calacanis. He’s blah and blah and blah. Not one thing he does is without controversy.

The reason his name comes up so frequently in conversations is because he’s absolutely brilliant. Take the post about how to save money running a startup for which he caught a metric ton of shit from the rest of the bloggerati. It is one of the best articles on the subject.

One piece of advice, “buy cheap tables and expensive chairs” ring especially true. Most IT professionals spend an average of 10 hours a day sitting down in a chair. Meanwhile, spending money on Aeron chairs is considered decadent. Decadent my ass.

At one of my previous employers good chairs were very hard to come by. The usual new-looking $100 chairs were extremely painful to sit on. I developed all kinds of weird leg and back pains for which forced me to see a doctor several times.

This is the most comfortable chair that I could find (and also the worst looking one). My boss had an Aeron for himself.

Bobby Fisher refused to play chess without a Herman Miller Time Life chair. By the way, the Time Life building for which lobby the chairs were supposedly designed does not have a single one in it, just a 100 dollar ass-wreckers for the security personnel and a Barcelona chairs in waiting lounges.

Not buying good chairs for programmers is pretty stupid. The place where I work now has outstanding chairs, and I am very grateful for that.