Musical Chairs...

I finally figured it out. My chair, that is. The chair I sit in, five days a week, at work. True, I'm only in the office for about an hour and a half each day, but still. I would really like to have a chair with hydraulics that work.

I have long legs. I like the chair to be as tall as possible, so I move the lever and pull on the chair seat. Up it goes. And then I sit down. And down it goes. Just once, I'd like to sit at the proper height. Just once, is that asking too much?

I guess I could “trade” chairs with somebody else, when they weren't looking, but none of the chairs are particularly worthy of being stolen, or even used. And absolutely no two of them are alike. Some are similar, but none are alike. They are old, and dirty, and broken.

We have an email system that serves the hospital district. People are always “advertising” office furniture that they want to get rid of, in case someone else can use it. “For Hospital Use Only” of course. You can't take the stuff home and use it in your own home office.

But, you have to be sitting at your desk all day, with a computer in front of you, and your email box open, in order to take advantage of the giveaways. Otherwise, you can only read about them after the fact.

By the time I have a chance to read my district email, I usually have at least 1200 emails in my inbox. Perhaps 1% of those emails have any meaning to me, working out here in the hinterlands. The rest are for folks working in the hospital proper.

I have to wade through hundreds of emails such as “the ________ system is down” followed quickly by “the ________ system is back up” ad nauseum. And the furniture ads, too: “bookcase available for district use” followed within thirty seconds by “the bookcase has been claimed.”

Somebody here in home health must have responded to an email about chairs. The response must have been something like “sure, send us all your old, mismatched, non-working chairs. Our nurses are only here for a few hours a day. If they want to be comfortable, they can go sit in their cars.”

Actually, the ugly old chairs match our cubbyholes perfectly. We have three drawers, no shelves, and a surge protector that is so far under the desk that you have to crawl on the floor to plug in your laptop. It's not inconvenient, really. It's good exercise.

So today, when I put together the chairs I ordered for my home office, I was wondering what to do with my old office chair, at home. It's blue/gray, fairly comfortable, and the hydraulics still work. And it dawned on me: I'll take it to work!

So, I stuck it in the back of my car. It will accompany me to work on Monday. I even labeled it, with my name on the back. And a message from me:

“Please don't take my chair, I brought it from home.”