I have been typing professionally for 43 years, ever since, at age 14, I started working for a local hobby shop.

Over those four decades I’ve typed hundreds of thousands of lines of code, typed millions of words of blog posts, typed hundreds of letters to Santa Claus, and entered untold Minute Maid frozen orange juice invoices into a mini computer. I’ve typed so much that my longterm disability insurance policy has specific exclusions for anything related to my typing-related body parts.

And over those four decades I’ve worked hard to make it possible to sit at a keyboard to do all of the above, without completely losing the ability to do so, seeking advice from smart ergonomics people (followed by repair from smart physiotherapists), and purchasing the best office furniture I could afford.

A big investment came in 2010, when I purchased a custom-designed desk chair from Chairs Limited in Dartmouth. It cost me $748; for me, a lot to spend on a self-indulgence, no matter how adjustable it was (and it was very adjustable). I typed in that chair for 13 years. I wrote a book in that chair. I sat in that chair for phone calls, Skype calls, Zoom calls (including a regular once a week, every Friday morning at 11:00 a.m., with my colleagues in New Hampshire). I sat in the chair for, what, 15,000 hours? Maybe 20,000?

I have all but stopped typing professionally, so I’ve no need for a desk chair. 

Last week, with Lisa’s estimable Facebook Marketplace skills deployed, I sold the chair. For $75. To parents who bought it for their son. 

The chair served me well; it was a good investment.

The truth of the matter is, however, that there’s no chair, and no amount of ergonomics, that will made sitting in one place for 8 hours, day after day after day, good for the body; perhaps if I’d had a less comfortable chair, I would have been prompted to the far better option of standing up to move around.