Wow — first the Ginsu knife
man dies, now the inventor of the
Aeron chair has passed away, Valleywag
says, pointing at a New York Times
write-up.
Unlike a Ginsu knife, I did buy an Aeron chair. Sure, it was expensive and a
symbol of Silicon Valley exuberance. But it’s also the best chair I’ve ever
owned, one just past six years of use. The Staples generic office chair it
replaced made it only about two years.
I’m in my chair for 8 to 10 hours per day easily. When I first started
working from home, with money tight as often the case for any new consultant,
buying quality office furniture wasn’t at the top of my list. I went to
Staples (yes, they’ve got them here in
the UK) and picked out one of those standard blue chairs pretty similar to what
you see
here.
About two years later, it was falling apart. Screws kept dropping out of the
bottom of it, plus I could see the welds literally breaking loose because of
heavy use.
I needed a better chair. I’d heard about the Aeron and sat in a couple during
some visits to people in real offices. It seemed nice.
Herman Miller, which makes the
chair, actually had a factory or office or something out near Bath, relatively
close to my house. So I made a trip out, tried out the chair a bit more and
decided to buy one. It was about $900 at the time, about 10 times the price of
my Staples cheapie.
I’ve never regretted the purchase. The chair still looks and feels great.
It’s comfortable and gives every indication it’ll go another six years easily
for me.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
hmm, they say things come in three’s – maybe the inventor of the Internet – Al Gore is next?
(sarcasm font off)
Danny – it’s not an Aeron, but these bungy chairs (www.chairs1000.com/High-Back-Executive-Bungee-Chair.htm)are a great low budget option – very comfy even for long stints. We’ve got ‘em all over the office, I’ve got one at home, and no one has complained about them yet.
Have a look at it. I use one of their chairs and the quality is really great. Unfortunately, they are located in India so don’t know whether you would prefer to buy it from there or not! Here is their URL http://www.hof.in
That’s way cool! I didn’t think it could get any better than an Aeron! I saw that on officedesigns.com and I am way excited about it! I’m going to wait until they have one of their huge sales to get one.
Actually, I think Miller bought the design from a Minnesota man named Peterson. I was dating his sister, and she told me that her brother had designed the original version while working at Miller.