Message from the President
A decade ago, sometime during the great recession, I owned a computer repair company. One year after having a modestly successful year, I treated myself to a new “executive” $99 chair from Office Depot. It had one adjustment—up and down. Life was pretty good. I had a private office, an executive chair, and a growing business. At some point during the next year I started to get sore legs. After about 20 minutes of sitting, it would feel like the blood was getting cut off and my legs would start to tingle. I’m not talking about the good kind of Chris Matthews “thrill going up my leg” tingle. But rather a sharp stinging that was very uncomfortable and painful; so much so that I could only sit at my desk for an hour or so a day. My ability to do the necessary work at my business started to suffer.
Finding The Leap
Around this time my brother, Jason, purchased a business in Boise by the name of Office Environment Company. He mentioned to me he could help my leg problem with a new chair. I came to look at the chairs and the $799 price tag for some was shocking. “What in the world is in this chair? Is it lined with gold foil or something? How could it possibly cost this much!” My brother convinced me it would be worth the price and soon I found myself driving home a brand-new Steelcase Leap chair. I swapped out my old executive chair for the Leap but didn’t feel relief right away because I still had a pinch point right above my knees that would cause numbness.
So I called my brother and he drove out to my office and spent some time reviewing the ergonomic adjustments with me. I hadn’t realized how many adjustments the chair could make. We ended up making the right adjustments that relieved the pressure and voila, I was able to sit without pain again. With a proper task chair I was now able to sit and work for eight plus hours in a day. Being able to increase my office productivity from one hour to eight hours a day was life and business saving. I have since sold the business, but I did keep the chair. And amazingly the chair looks as good today as it did the day I purchased it.
A special thanks to my brother for convincing me to spend money on a good chair and to Steelcase for making the chair that saved my business.
Scott Galloway
President
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