the great office chair race

it all started on a slow Monday morning at techtonic solutions, a small it company where nothing ever happened quickly _except coffee machine breakdown, the staff, mostly fueled by caffeine sarcasm, had hit boredom. deadlines were weeks away; the servers were humming happily. and the boss was on vacations in Bali. proudly ignoring emails and reality. Enter Ravi, the self-declared "Office Vibe Manager" (not a real title, but he made a badge). With his glasses slightly tilted and a grin that screamed “I have a terrible idea,” he rolled into the break room on his worn-out office chair like a villain entering a Western saloon.

“I challenge thee,” he announced dramatically, pointing at Ramesh, the finance guy, “to the Great Office Chair Race of 2025!”

Ramesh, who hadn’t moved faster than a slow shuffle since 2019, looked up from his spreadsheet. “You’re on,” he said, already plotting his pit stop strategy and wondering if he could expense a new chair under “mobility enhancement.”

By noon, the race had escalated beyond two bored coworkers. Half the office had joined. HR pretended not to notice, which in corporate terms meant full approval. Saira from marketing made posters. Prakash from IT brought out a stopwatch. Priya from admin created race brackets and insisted everyone sign a waiver that basically read, “If you crash, that’s on you.”

The course? A zigzag path from the reception desk, past the water cooler, around the printer (nicknamed “The Jammer”), through the accounting cubicles, and finishing at the server room door. The race rules were simple:

Only swivel chairs allowed.

No feet on the ground – push-off only at the start.

Style points awarded for tricks, crashes, or hilarious commentary.

The first heat featured Ravi and Ramesh. With an exaggerated countdown—“Three, two, FUN!”—they launched. Ravi gained early speed thanks to his polished chair wheels and possibly illegal use of a spray bottle for extra glide. Ramesh, meanwhile, took a tactical approach, leaning back with arms crossed like a racecar driver in a commercial.

Then came the corner by the water cooler:

Ravi leaned too far left, lost control, and performed what witnesses described as a “triple spin and flop.” Water cups flew like confetti. Ramesh seized the opportunity, straightened up, and coasted through to victory while sipping a juice box he mysteriously produced mid-race.

By the afternoon, the office had turned into a full-blown sports arena. People cheered. Someone brought snacks. IT live-streamed the whole thing under the internal channel “Chair Force One.” Bets were made using leftover vending machine tokens.

In the semi-finals, Priya shocked everyone by drifting around the copy machine like a Fast & Furious character. She yelled “Tokyo Drift!” and scared two interns so badly they logged off and pretended to be in a meeting.

The final showdown: Priya vs. Ramesh.

The race was neck and neck. As they approached the final stretch, Ramesh leaned in, determined to win the only competition he’d entered since a 5th-grade spelling bee disaster. But Priya had one trick left: her chair had a retractable lever.

She popped it, leaned all the way back, and aerodynamic physics (or dumb luck) took over. She whooshed past Ramesh at the last second, arms raised in victory, while his chair hit the corner of the server room and spun in shame.

The office erupted in cheers. Ravi dramatically presented a golden stapler as the trophy. The boss, still on a beach sipping coconut water, remained blissfully unaware.

From that day forward, June 30th was known as “Chair-iot Day”, and once a year, productivity took a back seat to office Olympics.

Moral of the story? Sometimes, all you need to boost morale is a wheeled chair, a bored team, and absolutely no adult supervision.