Over the last year and a half, I have discovered that I have lumbar spine issues. It started out as a pain in the butt when I was running, literally. Now my lower back and my hips hurt if I sit or stand in one place for too long. After several MRIs, X-rays, and ultrasounds, I found that I have advanced arthritis in the lower spinal joints, inflammation, and moderate narrowing around several nerve exits. I went through a period where my feet had itching/burning sensations throughout the day. Luckily, that has subsided, but my back and hip issues make it hard to sit and write for more than 20-30 minutes.
I’ve been researching office chairs to find one that might help, and the Stealcase Leap seems like the best option on paper. But it is about $ 1,395 more than I want to spend. When Amazon had it on a Prime Day-type sale a week ago, I found one for $1077 from the authorized Steelcase Amazon seller. After hemming and hawing about buying it while on the phone with my wife. I decided to throw caution to the wind and buy it. Whenever I do that, it invariably bites me in the ass. I wonder why I overthink things.
After I bought it, I saw the order email said it was “Steelcase Leap Replacement Upholstered Hard Casters, Onyx.” I did a double take and said, I thought to myself, “I don’t want a used one. I definitely don’t want to pay that much for a used one. How did that change when I placed the order?”
I went to the question section on the product listing, and the AI assured me that it was new. The listing was using a subheading for replacement casters, but everything else said it was a chair. I rechecked the return policy and decided that I can always return it. Why does this happen to me when I try so hard to be careful?
When I checked out, it gave a delivery date of October 14-20. Which was good, because we were going to be in upstate New York for Columbus Day weekend. But the next day, I got an email saying it had shipped via FedEx. Later that day, FedEx said it would be delivered on Saturday, the day we wouldn’t be here and when the remnants of Hurricane Isaias would be coming through. I tried to submit a request through their website to hold the package, but the next day it was as if I’d never done anything. I tried several more times and just got error messages.
Our usual go-to for deliveries while we are away wouldn’t work in this case because of its size and weight. So my wife reached out to another neighbor who said he could move it into our garage. I checked the website that morning just to see if anything had changed, and it said it was out for delivery on a truck. My wife used the AI chat, and it told her that not all items can be held, which is why it was out for delivery. I told her that it was a chatbot and didn’t know anything. Sure enough, an hour later, the website said it was being held. Crisis averted. For now.
I planned to pick it up on Tuesday, but something weird was happening on the FedEx website. It said it was out for delivery and that it had been shipped back and forth to Connecticut overnight. I thought, “Hey, that saves me a trip, plus I couldn’t get it today with all the rain. I had no way of covering it in my truck bed.”
The next day, I figured out that “Out for Delivery,” when they are holding your package, is code for “we shipped it back to CT overnight and then back to NH for the nice people in Manchester to hold it for you.”
I picked it up on Wednesday without a problem. I expected it to be beat to hell after two trips back and forth from CT to NH over several days. It looked better than most packages I get.
I brought it home, set it up, and was very happy with how it treated my back. It had all sorts of adjustment levers I didn’t know how to use, so I waited until today to figure them out.
I found the official Steelcase setup video and enjoyed exploring all the ways I could adjust the seat until I got to the part about the sliding lumbar support. I discovered mine didn’t have that. My heart sank, so I searched to see whether that was unusual. I found this article from Crandall Office Furniture - it says, “the lumbar support is included as a standard feature. However, if you choose to remove it, you’ll receive a $49 discount.” Well, nothing on the listing said that.
I then wanted to figure out whether this was refurbished or counterfeit, but Steelcase doesn’t offer a way to look up serial numbers on their website. When I looked up the model number on the bottom of the chair, it came back as the part number for replacement casters. Which explains the subheading on Amazon.
Either way, this isn’t what I thought I was buying, and I have no way to verify it is new and complete. I should have trusted my gut and canceled the order when the product subheading caught my attention. Or when I opened the box and it looked like it had just been thrown in.
This is what a new one in a box looks like according to BOTD. You can fast-forward to see them unboxing the chair. In short, very different from what I got.
I spent the last ninety minutes disassembling the chair and putting it back in the box it came in. To me, this is just another example of how people and companies break the social contract. I want a chair that doesn’t hurt my lower back after 20 minutes, and I paid someone on a website who said this chair could do that for me. Instead, my pain in the butt came back. Buying this chair was painful. What annoys me more, this seems to be becoming the norm.