What is your bum worth? The comfort of a Herman Miller chair? Your lumbar protected? Not too hard for those of bony hinds? Ergonomically correct. Aesthetically tasteful. About $600? I don’t know. When I spent that kind of money on my chair for home, my heart pain….But at least, that’s MY money.
I thought only the Manpower ministry bought those sort of expensive chairs. But seems the Attorney-General’s Chambers and SPRING did so too, according to Today. Not just one chair for the boss or something. But 472 chairs for MOM staff at $570 each (I must see what the guy at the counter sits on!). AGC – 200 chairs for $597 each (lawyer’s bum worth more) and Spring – 28 chairs for $650 (fewer probably only for just key bums).
Wow. Can buy so many Brompton bikes for other bums which have to be mobile.
Seems like the agencies all went through the right procedures etc to procure those designer chairs, unlike the Brompton bike case. So tenders went out, bids looked at and chair selected. Selected with many criteria in mind. Can’t be the cheapest one, like the plastic ones at wakes of course. Got to be something sturdy and durable. These chairs have a 12-year warranty. Wow! That’s real long. I guess the agencies are going to use these chairs for that whole length of time….Hmmm.
Thing is, I have no idea what a good office chair is – or what it should cost. The whole un-stated charge that the public sector is paying too much for chairs have to be placed in context, methinks. What do other government agencies pay for their chairs, like ah, for the people in the Auditor-General’s office or ministries of equivalent size of MOM, AGC. Do the top 20 head honchos in MOE, Mindef etc sit on those kinds of chairs? And what does the private sector pay for the chairs – I think they would be extra careful, since they have to watch their bottomline…Now that would be really strange…if the highly profitable companies put bums on cheaper chairs.
.
An ex-journalist who can't get enough of the news after being in the business for 26 years
