Buying an Ergonomic Task Chair for a Sacramento Realtor

A really good ergonomic task chair is also a work of art to admire.

How much would you spend on a task chair? When you’re a Sacramento Realtor like me who sells on average 100 homes a year and spends most of her time in front of the computer, an ergonomic task chair is important. My cat has chewed up one of the arms on my weathered chair, and I’m trying to find a new chair to order. This is Sacramento; it’s not like I can visit a high-end task chair store because there aren’t any. Further, people think that real estate agents work in an office, but most agents do not. We work at our home offices. We meet clients in the office, but not generally sellers. I go to my seller’s homes prior to taking a listing, and we often meet with buyers in the field. But the real work is done on a computer, in front of a screen, and typically in a task chair.

The problem I’m finding is many of the great ergonomic task chairs are fairly expensive, ranging from $500 all the way to $3,500 for an Eames. I am sold 100% on ergonomic features. For example, I make sure that I type on an ergonomic split keyboard. I use a mouse arm tied to my chair that keeps my arm level and a wrist guard for the wireless mouse. I sit up straight in my chair, well, most of the time. Both feet are on the floor. As a result, I don’t suffer from carpal tunnel or any of the other maladies people often suffer from who spend so much time in front of the computer.

I work about 12 hours a day and 7 days a week; only 2 hours of any given day are typically spent in the field with a seller listing her home and shooting photographs. My team members go out in the field to show homes to buyers, but the rest of our work is done by phone and computer. It’s not the glamorous life people imagine for real estate agents, I suspect.

When I get a phone call, I often get up and pace the floor so I can concentrate on the caller. When I was at the airport last week waiting for my flight to Minneapolis, I noticed a guy in the boarding area who did that — completely oblivious to everybody around him, phone plastered to his ear, waving his arms for emphasis as he spoke, wandering aimlessly — so I recognize the signs of an overachiever because I see this manner of focusing in myself.

If I were to sit in front of my computer to answer the phone, I would be tempted to respond to the myriad of emails that continue to arrive, irrespective of origination. Multi-tasking doesn’t tend to return excellent results. My clients deserve my complete focus. Yet, I still spend an inordinate amount of time in a task chair. Which has forced me to think about what I want in a task chair. My comfort level says a mid-back with lumbar support, adjustable height, plush seat, fixed arms for the mouse arm, and the arms can’t be wider than 2 1/2 inches in order to bolt, not tie, the mouse arm. I’m gravitating toward a Haworth Very chair. What do you think?