![]() ![]() The thing to do is find a local store that sells all these chairs and try them all out. If you're investing $500+ in a chair, you'd understandably want to be sure it's "the one". There were also some lesser known recommendations, such as the Haworth Zody chair, Nightingale CXO chair, BodyBilt ergo chairs, Hag kneeling chair, NeutralPosture ergo, the Chadwick Chair from the original designer of the Aeron, and something called the swopper.Ĭhair fit is, of course, a subjective thing. Here are pictures and links to the chairs that were most frequently mentioned as contenders, in addition to the Mirra and Aeron pictured above: I liked the Mirra, but the comments to my original chair post have a lot of other good seating suggestions, too. So I've retrained myself not to recline, which is awkward, as I'm a natural recliner.Īll this made me wonder if I should retire my Aeron and upgrade to something better. I actually broke my Aeron's recline pin once and had to replace it myself. I've been disappointed by how poorly the Aeron reclines. The Mirra chair was an excellent recliner, too. I recently had the opportunity to sit in a newer Herman Miller Mirra chair on a trip, and I was surprised how much more comfortable it felt than my classic Aeron. An office full of Aerons implicitly rejected the Fortune 500, coat-and-tie, brick-and-mortar model in which the boss sinks back in an overpriced, oversized, leather dinosaur while his secretary perches on an Office Max toadstool taking notes. The Aeron was a visual expression of the anti-corporate zeitgeist, a non-hierarchical philosophy about the workplace. ![]() The Aeron was high-tech but sexy – which was how the dot-commers saw themselves.īut baby-faced CEOs weren't drawn to the Aeron only for the way it looked. Assorted knobs and levers allowed you to adjust the seat height, tilt tension, tilt range, forward tilt, arm height, arm width, arm angle, lumbar depth, and lumbar height. ![]() What's more, the chair came in three sizes, like a personalized tool. Held taut by an aluminum frame, the mesh allowed air to circulate and kept your body cool. The black Pellide webbing was durable, and hid whatever Jolt or Red Bull stains you might get on it. The Aeron was a must-have for hot startups precisely because it looked the least like office furniture: It was more like a piece of machinery or unadorned engineering. Why not take the same care and consideration in selecting a chair as you would with the other strategic directions that you'll carry with you for the rest of your career? Skimping yourself on a chair just doesn't make sense.Īlthough I've been quite happy with my Herman Miller Aeron chair over the last 10 years, I've always been a little disenchanted with the way it became associated with dot-com excess: In the '90s, the Aeron became an emblem of the dot-com boom it symbolized mobility, speed, efficiency, and 24/seven work weeks. While the initial sticker shock of a quality chair may turn you off, try to mentally amortize that cost across the next ten years or more.Ĭhoice of seating is as fundamental and constant as it gets in a programming career otherwise marked by relentless change. I can't think of any other piece of equipment I use in my job that has lasted me ten full years and beyond. As I write this, I'm still sitting my original Aeron chair, which I purchased in 1998. A cheesy, cheap chair constantly reminds you how many hours of work you have left. A quality chair is so comfortable and accommodating it effortlessly melts into the background, so you can focus on your work. In my experience, the difference between the really great chairs and the cheap stuff is enormous. Maybe I've become spoiled, but I have yet to sit in a single good, cheap chair. Like it or not, whatever you're sitting in has a measurable impact on your work experience. Eight hours a day, every day, for the rest of your working life – you're sitting in one. Chairs are a primary part of the programming experience. ![]() I still believe this to be true, and I urge any programmers reading this to seriously consider the value of what you're sitting in while you're on the job. If you are spending less than that on seating – unless you are getting the deal of the century on dot-bomb bankruptcy auctions – you're probably making a mistake. In fact, after browsing chairs for the last few years of my career, I've come to one conclusion: you can't expect to get a decent chair for less than $500. In A Developer's Second Most Important Asset, I described how buying a quality chair may be one of the smartest investments you can make as a software developer. ![]()
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