One of the first things that you must acquire when you begin your life as a blogger is a proper office chair. You may want to save a couple of bucks by using just any ordinary dining chair or a $50 excuse for one that you saw on a flyer with a big ‘Sale’ header, but mark my words, you’ll soon be crying for something with more support.

I got one of these ‘Vitamin’ round stools at Ikea last year. I was told that it would force me to sit with good posture and because I have a terrible habit of slouching, I decided $50 was worth the expense. I am here to say it’s a LIE! Do not buy this stool. It may seem like a neat balancing game in the beginning (it has a round instead of flat bottom) but trust me the novelty wears off very quickly and you’ll discover sitting on it creates an extra roll on your ass that wasn’t there before. So hunting I went for its replacement.

I went to Ikea first. I had to buy a desk anyway and knowing that their chairs were relatively inexpensive, it was worth a look. I was wrong. Don’t you guys go to Ikea for office chairs. Their desks are great but they must’ve given their chair projects to designers-in-training because they obviously didn’t know what would be comfortable. I don’t think I sat in one single chair that I liked. I had some Swedish meatballs instead (a fantastic deal by the way. For $4.29, you can get the Swedish Meatball Plate: 10 Swedish meatballs with potatoes and sweet-tart lingonberries. I must’ve gone when there was a deal because I paid that much with a drink included).

With my belly full, I headed over to Staples, the logical next stop as it is located right across from Ikea (the Richmond branch). They seemed to have quite a selection so I was relieved. Maybe this would be my last stop. Testing out chairs is actually quite fun, although I don’t think the salespeople meant for them to be zipped down the isles. It’s amazing to see the difference in the quality and functionality of all the chairs available. There are SO many awful ones! There should definitely be a standard to abide by because most of them are not fit to be sold. Someone should tell those manufacturers that ergonomics is not a branch of mathematics.

To my surprise, I actually found a good chair. It had a price of $169.99, so more than I wanted to spend, but after testing out a seemingly endless line of chairs, you’ll also be willing to spend just a little more than you had planned to. You might want to do the actual purchase in another Staples branch though because if you have the same experience as me, you’ll be sitting there for thirty (yes that’s 3-0) minutes watching two salespeople scurry about trying to track down the box that contains the chair you want.

There are 3 criteria that your office chair must meet:

1. Obviously it has to go up and down. I doubt you’d have measured the distance between the floor and your desk and even if you had, what is the likelihood that you have a measuring tape with you.

2. The seat must be able to tilt up and down. When you’re working at your desk, you should be sitting at a slight angle downward because it’ll bring the back of your seat forward a bit to ensure you have that back support.

3. The back of the seat should be adjustable. You should be able to set it at a more acute angle when working and then a more comfortable position when simply browsing the net or watching a video online.

You must find a chair that has three separate levers for these requirements and each lever must be able to lock at ANY position. Most chairs will only have a latch that will lock at the slightly downward position and if not locked, the chair simply swivels back and forth depending on your weight distribution. Very annoying.

The chair I purchased meets all of the requirements, is quite comfortable, rolls on castors, has a bit of a bucket seat design to it, and has a high back in case I need to lean my head on something when I blank out on a story. Armrests are also essential and these come with a groove. It comes in a fabric upholstery instead of leather but that’s actually a good thing. With our summers getting hotter and hotter, you don’t want to have to unstick yourself from your seat every 15 minutes.

Sounds too good to be true right? Well, I haven’t begun to assemble it yet.

Check out the manual (which is just a one-sided piece of paper). Everything after step 2 is pointless. Step 3 is impossible because you can’t screw the arms on without propping up the seat on something. The only way to do this is to turn it upside down and screw it from the underside (this is where the piano stool comes into play). The picture on the diagram shows the seat right side up but it is impossible to assemble the chair that way. Also, according to the manual, the short ‘C’ screws should go on the outer right side and on the inner left side of the armrest screw holes so one of them has to be wrong. I figured it out because the thick ‘H’ washers are on the inside and only the long screws work with them.

Step 4 is impossible to do without Step 5 first, so reverse the order and you can continue. The plastic piece (8) is both upside down on the diagram and positioned in the wrong place. You need to put the seat on the pedestal before putting the back on the seat if you want to avoid trashing your floors (remember all the metal parts under the seat). Also, you need to put on (8) before you can put on (1). This chair may come with an Allan key but it ain’t no Ikea. Full assembly took about 30 minutes but that was with a lot of interruptions to complain. If you know what you’re doing and don’t assume that the manual is bible, it really shouldn’t take you too much longer than 15 minutes. Should the creator of this manual happen to come across this article, I’d highly recommend he/she read Robert M. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

It’s worth it though. I’m sitting on it right now finishing this article and I’m quite pleased with the purchase. I have to admit though, I wasn’t the one who put it together. It’s handy to have a man around the house!

Final Thought: Please note that this is a Staples chair so you wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere else. Should you decide to purchase something from Staples and find it cheaper elsewhere, you can always go back and get a price adjustment and get a refund on the difference. Remember though, that you ony have 30 days from the day of purcahse to do it.