Finding the chase and cutting to it

I am a coder, it’s what I do, it’s how I view the world.

It’s not the only way to solve problems, it is not the only tool in my kit, but it is a powerful one for the right kind of problems.

I spend, during my working week, approx. 7 hours a day sitting at my desk to achieve my tasks during the working week, and, in my past, a good 3-7 hours during the weekend too, learning, developing skills, creating fun things.

My desk chair is vital to the quality of my work when I am working from home. Like our beds, the qulaity of our chairs impacts our comfort and health.

I was lucky, the first house I bought was downsizing and they left an old, great quality office chair behind them, which I built a desk around – I had room for a 10 foot x 2.5ft desk, so we bought three trestles from ikea and built a desk with a custom cut 20mm deep MDF desk. It weighed a ton, and due to the stairs in this house, there was a bit of shuffling to get the painted desk up into the room, but it was glorious. My monitors were in the perfect position, the modem was in the same room, life was perfect.

My desk was indigo blue, the trestles were stained pine, and my chair was maroon – but comfy.

Then we moved, the house took my desk, my (then and now) husband at one end of the desk, me at the other, and my son could squeeze in when the time came. My chair was begining to show its age.

So, I spotted one I liked in Staples that was being sold in a clearance sale, and swapped out my chair. My husband started working for a different employer, so moved to a different room and I started looking a the room in a different way and bought a smaller top for my desk. Moved a sofa into my office and had a couple of tamber units from my husband’s old office we got for £2 plus moving costs.

When we moved house again, the old desk became a model railway table, and I finally bought a “proper” computer desk. It’s a corner desk, with a unit for my computer and room for the cables. I have network connections and a white board, my piano and a white board. A printer is ready to go when I need it. But again, my chair was begining to show its age.

Cushions helped with the sagging and tatty coverings, but it was not someone I wanted to spend my weekends doing my blog and web maintenance. The kitchen was drafted instead.

But last week I saw a chair I thought might work – this isn’t something I’d normally get mail order, but I am now sitting, drafting this blog in my pale green computer chair with my feet nestled under my desk on its foot rest. My lumber support is doing its job and I feel like the next time I work from home is going to be dicing with my back health.

Renewal, regrowth, hope.