LincolnBlogs

I have long held the opinion that you should not skimp on the things that you use professionally and frequently. For instance I often tell my peers to make sure they buy decent computers and not just bargain basement models. For some reason it never occurred to me to apply this reasoning to my posterior. That is, until recently.

I have been using a most uncomfortable office chair for the longest time, in fact, for the last 5 years. It’s one of those “conference room” models, which, although built plenty rugged, are not necessarily built for comfort. The real problem with this is I sit in the thing almost 8 hours a day. I even had to buy a pillow for it because I have what I like to refer to as “sysadmin’s butt”, which is essentially the lack of a posterior portion of your anatomy, due mostly to parking it in a chair 8 hours a day for many years.

A few days ago, a friend of mine who just happens to work for a great company called Knoll, got me hooked up with a review unit of the Knoll Generation chair. Let me just say I don’t know why I waited so long for a good chair!

This chair is the epitome of office comfort and has so many options to aid you in that regard it’s difficult to mention them all. Of course it offers the standard amenities such as height adjustment and a reclining back, but wait, there is more! It has these cool adjustable arms that not only raise and lower but they also have arm pads that adjust in depth, width and pivot. The back of the seat has this comfort type netting which is flexible, cool and very comfortable. The top of the back flexes almost over backwards and it a great place to rest your arm while sitting sideways in high comfort. I think the feature that threw me the most is the flex seat. Unlike most chairs with a solid unyielding seat, this seat has some degree of movement or side to side pivot. I almost thought that my chair was broken until I realized that this was intentional! This pivot to the seat allows comfort and support for how people sit. What I mean by that is people sit different ways and on different angles with their feet up, legs crossed and what have you, and this seat allows some motion in that regard to keep even support and pressure where it should be, fully on your posterior instead of on your legs when you are not seated “flat”. In addition to that, the seat depth adjusts as well.

Although this chair may be on the expensive side, I believe it’s well worth it, especially for people who are confined to such devices for much of their day. I wish they had a travel version available, I would buy it in a minute 😉 I think the best testimony is that every person in my office has now sampled the chair and ALL of them want one! If you are in need, you can’t go wrong with one of these. It’d most likely be the last office chair you would ever need to buy.

My only hope and wish is that the Knoll folks see this review and decide to send me one of their other products to test as well! Other than that, I’ll be happy to hang out in my own Genertion!