I got a lift at work

There are some advantages to where I work.  Steady weekday hours.  No nights or weekends.   You cannot take your work with you.  No phone calls or emails after hours.  Two miles from work.  We make Steel Rule Dies, and have (2) Lasers and (1) Water Jet Machine to help us with die work.  We also have a CAD room to process our die orders, and of course, a shop to make them.

If you look around our offices, you will notice that all the desk materials are make of the same materials, but each desk space is custom made.  Some of the storage and work areas in the shop are the same.  I never really noticed this until a few months ago when my work area moved so we would have a new table to lay out work on, and meet with customers. 

So, do we go online and order a table?  Do we go to Staples, cause, yeah, they got that.  No, we make our own.  First, we sketch it out, then our CAD dept designs it and saves it in the language needed for our Laser.  The Laser burns the boards into the parts needed.  Then the shop assembles the table, and finishes it.  Then, a few hours after it was designed, BOOM, we have a new table. 

That's how all our desks were made at work.  We have rolling carts to hold dies that were made in the shop.  Once, I noticed that, I see our work everywhere.

What does have to do with getting a lift at work?   Glad you asked.  I sit on your average black work desk chair with (2) arms.  These chairs have a gas canister lift system.  There is a handle on the side to raise or lower the chair.   Eventually, they stop working and the chair sags.  My chair started sagging late last week, where I was lifting it up several times a day.  Then last Tuesday, it stopped working.

I decided to show my boss and see what could be done.  Here is the timeline.

2 pm: My boss comes in the office for another reason and I call him over to show him the chair and how it will not stay raised.  I asked if there was something we could do or add so it would not sag.

2:05 pm:  My boss comes back in and looks at the chair.  Thinks he has a possible solution.

2:10 pm: CAD Designer and Water jet operator Shannon comes in.  He makes measurement and leaves.

2:20 pm: Shannon arrives with a metal donut in (2) pcs.  He checks the fit and says it looks good.  He is going to ask Bill in the shop when he can tack weld the donut to the chair.

2:22 pm:  We can go now.  I wheel my desk chair to the shop--with amused looks--and give it to Bill, one of our Die Makers.  We set the height needed and I leave. 

2: 40 pm:   Bill wheels the chair back in the office.  BOOM!  I have a fixed chair that does not sag anymore.

A simple solution and a quick fix.  We do have some ingenuity in the office at times.  Another advantage of working there, I guess.  Maybe we could expand our business into chair repairs?  Hmmmm.....