Appreciation post: The $35K office chair that changed our downtown Detroit shop

So we run a small web dev shop in Capitol Park, 5 of us total. My buddy kept pushing for these fancy Steelcase Gesture chairs, like $1,200 each. I thought he was nuts. We had basic Staples chairs for years. Finally gave in after he showed me a spreadsheet on how much time we lose to back pain. After 6 months, our output went up by like 15% and two guys stopped complaining about their sciatica. I still think it's too much for a chair, but the numbers don't lie. Anyone else tried expensive office furniture and seen a real ROI?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jamie2d ago

Huh, that's wild, but I wonder if part of the gain is just the placebo of feeling taken care of, you know?

the_max2d ago

The 0.4 percent drop in their error rate over six months is literally the same margin they saw in the prior trial without the app. That number is so small it could just be random chance. I had to read that part twice because it felt like they were cherry picking the best week and ignoring the other five months. Plus they didn't even control for staff turnover, which always messes with these kinds of studies. If you strip out the people who got extra training during the same period, the effect basically disappears. So yeah, I'm not buying the placebo angle, I'm buying the "they fudged the stats" angle.