Taking A Tumble

Today at work, I had just finished getting the info I needed to make the editor assignments, and I was heading back to my desk. I came around the corner at a pretty high rate of speed and plopped down into my chair. Little did I know, my chair was on the verge of going to the big office in the sky, so when I plopped into it, it crumpled and I went with it in a gloriously buffoonish pratfall in front of all my co-workers nearby.

Here's the chair:

The part where the base attaches to the stand snapped, and the top just fell off with me in it. Everyone at work had a good time calling me fat, including one of our photographers who is much heavier than me. He said he was really happy to have a chance to call someone else a fat pig for once.

The sad thing is that this is not the first time I've taken a buffoonish pratfall at work when trying to sit on my chair. Back in 2004, on my very first day on the job as senior editor, I inspired a great deal of confidence in the editors I was brought in to supervise by falling over the back of a chair that I sat down on too heavily.

You know how they have that lever on office chairs that make back of the chair remain firm and upright? If you switch it, you can lean back really far, right? But usually, when you're at a place of work, you don't lounge back super low in your chair. Well, whoever had sat in that chair before me did, so when I plopped down into the chair and leaned against the backrest, expecting it to support me, instead leaned away from my weight. I had plopped down too forcefully and couldn't stop my momentum, and I went all the way over the back, like a chump.

I think that all the people who worked with me back then and saw my buffoonery have since moved on to other pursuits. I suppose it was time to remind them of just how clumsy I can be, right? Wouldn't want them respecting me too much.