Keep Your Chair On!

Hello Dear Readers!

If it's the right chair, it doesn't take too long to get comfortable in it. Robert De Niro
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 “Chairs are useful”

― Stephen Moffat

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then I’ll begin.

It has been quite an action packed and positive week at SP Towers. My beloved wife and I celebrated four years of blissful, if at times a little too eventful, married life  with not just a huge bucket of fried chicken but also a rather posh three course meal (on separate nights you understand. We’re not quite that greedy).  We’ve also had positive news about the house purchase with searches started and the last bit of mortgage paperwork safely in place.

All of which has inspired me to write about… A chair.

A Hell of A Commute

For once I don’t mean my wheelchair when I say this, although I am still having just tons of fun with that (see Three Wheels On My Wagon). No this is a chair of your non propelled variety that I elude to.

I’ve now worked for my present employers for approaching five months and, although officially still on probation, I’ve been made to feel nothing but welcome from day one.

It is true that the building I work in is not tailor made for the disabled. Being located on the upper levels of a city centre shopping centre in my native Leeds, for instance, does not constitute the greatest of starts.  This means that my journey into the office at the start of the day entails parking up in the multilevel car park that adjoins said retail complex, taking a lift down to the ground floor level, navigating the shoppers and browsers, and then taking another rather idiosyncratic lift back up to the first floor (that’s the second for any American readers). It really is a wonder that I’ve only ever been late twice.

Making The Best Of It

Then we have the fact that, although the office is equipped with a nice, big, wheelchair accessible toilet (just the one, mind!), this is situated in the lobby of said office.  As I currently work on the seventh floor I’m sure you can see the potential challenges this situation poses.  I have learnt to limit my liquid intake and to avoid visiting the facilities at certain times whenever possible.

I know that all sounds rather negative, it doesn’t seem particularly like the red carpet has been particularly rolled out, and it may in fact leave you wondering what the hell I’m doing there, but there are positives and for me these definitely outweigh the difficulties.

 For one, I rather enjoy my job, not something I’m all that used to. For, two, the charity itself (for it is a charity I work for) are rather proactive when it comes to my disability. 

The toilet situation has meant that I have been given additional break time in order to facilitate the ride down in the lift and the ride back up without me having to request this, or, in fact, to highlight it in any way shape or form. The door entry system has been relocated at a lower level, my desk has been altered and a computer moved out of the way to afford me extra leg room, and then, there’s… (Queue forbidding music!)…  The Chair!

Take A Seat
You see, the office is equipped, in the main, with bog standard office chairs, upholstered in an insipid blue and run on those little castors that always put me in mind of shopping trolleys.  Since I started working for the charity I have declined the use of this kind of chair for the use of my own beloved and slightly knackered wheelchair. The reasons for this decision are as follows.

•     It’s just easier. It makes more sense to me to be able to just get up and go, whenever I want. be it to get a coffee, go to the loo, or just to go home at the end of the day.

•   It’s safer. Transferring in and out of my wheelchair isn’t the most onerous of tasks but getting in and out of a chair with wheels and no brakes does hold its challenges. You do not want to be going one way whilst the chair you’re leaning on goes another. 

•     It’s actually more comfortable. My wheelchair has a padded back and has a nice moulded cushion. The office chairs have all the padding of a barbed wire bench. 

•  You can’t pull a wheelie in an office chair.

This was the way it was until, one day, half way through a shift,  I was taken to one side and informed that a special chair was going to be ordered for me. A visit from a nice man with a tape measure soon followed and measurements from hip to knee, knee to foot, and neck to coccyx were taken.  

Nothing much happened after this and I’d all but forgotten about it when a few weeks later, I got into work to find something that looked like it had been taken from the bridge of the USS Enterprise. It was black, it was padded, equipped with neck support, armrests, and a whole array of tempting looking levers. It also had an intriguing looking black plastic ring just above the wheels with an equally intriguing remote control attached to it.

via GIPHY

Toys For Boys
This device, it turned out, was to raise or lower the small feet that could be put in place to give a firm base when rising from the chair but lifted to grant movement when not needed. This meant stability and a lot less danger of certain bloggers ending up in painful piles on the floor. The guy who brought my new throne left before I started work on delivery day, so our paths did not cross that day. He did turn up again though to show me how it could be moved up and down, back and forth, and even tilted to a different angle.  I am of course not treating this in any way like a new toy.

Of course there are teething troubles as one should probably expect and I’m still learning the ropes and getting the set up right. Unfortunately, the added stability of the braking ring is, at the moment, a permanent feature as the remote control doesn’t seem to work. Not ideal. I am promised a speedy repair though so all in all it’s not too much of an issue and once fixed, well that’s going to be another non-toy not to play with.

Still can’t do wheelies though.

Until next time…