Even though I have a permanently sore neck and shoulders I still felt a bit guilty at spending 600 quid on a Humanscale Liberty office chair last year. Not any more - I no longer feel like Quasimodo when it gets to 6 o’clock. It’s been worth every penny.
I justified it to myself by calculating that with a 10 year guarantee, it only costs me 60 quid a year, or 5 quid a month to save my back from becoming totally knackered.
Joel Spolky takes it one step further in his book Smart and Gets Things Done - a useful book on hiring programmers which I read on the train to Bristol today. He’s using the Aeron as an example, but it’s the same sort of thing:
So the bottom line is that an Aeron only really costs $500 more over ten years, or $50 a year. One dollar per week per programmer.
A nice roll of toilet paper runs about a buck. Your programmers are probably using about one roll a week, each.
So upgrading them to an Aeron chair literally costs the same amount as you’re spending on their toilet paper, and I assure you that if you tried to bring up toilet paper in the budget committee you would be sternly told not to mess around, there were important things to discuss.
I’m sure this line of argument could be used for leverage in a wide range of budgetary disagreements if you really needed it to. I’m remembering this one.
3 comments ↓
I had the same issue when it was time to replace my laptop last year. A friend couldn’t believe I was splashing out on a MacBook Pro, but I calculated that all the hours I lost due to my Dell crashing/being poorly built in the first place were costing me a fortune.
I could have got a much cheaper machine, but I’ve not lost a single hour’s work due to the Mac in over a year. I’ve only had one problem, with wireless connectivity due to an OS upgrade, but I could still work around it. So I reckon the machine has easily saved me more than the price difference.
Totally agree - ask a builder and he or she will tell you that they never, ever skimp on tools - buy the best and they’ll treat you well.
It’s the same for us. We use our main machine for hours every day - what’s the value in being stingy about it?
When I started my home office I was forced into purchasing a high-end chair. I had back surgery 3 years ago and had never found comfort in standard cheap chairs. I went to the Internet to find a good deal and found a website called http://www.OfficeDesigns.com. They had a huge selection of ergonomic office chairs that would be perfect for a person in my situation. I decided on an Aeron. Their product specialists were very helpful in helping me with my choice and they shipped the chair to me for free. I’ve been sitting comfortably ever since.
Leave a Comment