Ergonomic Seating

The ergonomic seating situation in my home office needs to be rethought. Things have gotten a good bit busier here and I can't get along with just my trusty old Herman Miller Aeron chair anymore. The only other chair in the room isn't exactly a sterling example of ergonomic seating--far from it. A dilapidated ladderback rescued from a garage sale hardly qualifies as being ergonomic ... torturous is more like it. So I've been looking through the catalogs and websites, in search of the latest and greatest (and hopefully not the most expensive) ergonomic seating solutions.

The Herman Miller chair was admittedly expensive. Labeled by many as the poster boy chair for dotcom excess, the Aeron really does do a nice job of supporting the lower back with a fully adjustable lumbar support. I've had far fewer incidents of back pain after switching to this chair. I really like the adjustable armrests, too. They provide plenty of support for those long stints at the keyboard.

Unfortunately, pain-free seating days are a thing of the past. Since adding the iMac to the office, I've been plagued by a new set of phantom pains ...

I didn't have a spare desk when I brought the new machine home. So it landed where so many computers have landed before: on our tiny old dining room table. Now here's a piece of furniture with sentimental value ... one of the very first pieces of furniture we purchased ... and one that has primarily played a role of work (rather than dining) surface over the years. Of late, it had been serving as the catch-all table, filled with the laser printer, scanner, telephone, wireless router, and VOIP box.

When the new box came home, the table became a desk, once again. Unfortunately, ergonomics had nothing to do with the decision.

Truth be told, the table's work surface isn't at a bad height ... the problem is that the keyboard sits just six inches too high. And no matter how I adjust my super-duper ergonomic chair, I just can't get the right match of keyboard-to-shoulder ratio. Like Dean Martin sang, "ain't that a kick in the head!" Well, not the head, actually, but the shoulders. This temporary setup is provoking intense pain in my shoulders and I'm praying that I can find the right combination of an ergonomic chair and computer desk.

If money weren't an object, I'd swing right out and buy some more expensive designer gear. Alas, that's just not in the cards this month. (The Aeron has been hanging around ranchero indebto since the height of the dotcom boom.) While I've learned to say away from the totally el cheapo stuff, (I've learned from experience), I can't swing for a plush setup. Seeing that the old dining room table is far from an heirloom, I'm giving due consideration to the installation of a keyboard drawer--that would solve the angle and height problem.

Ergonomic Seating Links