Dave's Chair

Dave worked in the kind of office where the highlight of the week was when the vending machine restocked the slightly-less-stale granola bars. Floor 14 of a beige building that smelled like printer toner and quiet despair. His desk faced a wall. His chair was older than most of the interns and squeaked like it had opinions.

One Tuesday, after three failed attempts to fix the squeak with WD-40 and pure denial, Dave rolled the chair into the hallway to test if it was the floor or the wheels. The hallway was empty except for the sad ficus plant everyone pretended wasn’t dying. Dave gave the chair a little push.
It rolled farther than physics should have allowed.

He pushed harder. The chair picked up speed, gliding past the break room like it had somewhere important to be. Dave jogged after it, laughing at first, then swearing when it slammed into the fire door and somehow didn’t set anything off. The impact left a perfect chair-shaped dent in the metal.

That’s when the idea formed.
By lunch he’d texted the group chat: “Office chair race. 4pm. Loser buys the good coffee for a week.” Six replies came back instantly. By 3:45, twelve people had shown up with their own chairs, some modified with tape, one with actual racing stripes drawn in Sharpie.

The rules were simple: start at the copy room, finish at the emergency exit. No standing. No pushing off walls. The hallway was long, carpeted, and slightly downhill toward the end. Perfect.
Dave went first. He kicked off hard, chair screaming like a wounded goose. He was winning until the ficus plant betrayed him. One wheel clipped the pot, the chair spun, and Dave sailed straight into the mail cart. Envelopes exploded like confetti. Everyone cheered like it was the Super Bowl.

Then Karen from accounting brought out her secret weapon: a chair she’d stolen from the executive floor. It had actual ball bearings and a lumbar support that looked expensive. She beat Dave’s time by four seconds and immediately started trash-talking.
That’s when things escalated.
Someone suggested a bracket tournament. Someone else brought the whiteboard from the strategy room and started keeping score. By 4:20 the entire floor had heard the noise and most of them were either competing or betting on the outcome. Even the IT guy showed up with a stopwatch app and a serious expression.

Round three is when the CEO appeared.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just stood at the end of the hallway in a suit that cost more than Dave’s car, watching Karen barrel toward him at questionable speeds. She tried to brake. The chair did not believe in brakes. She crashed into the CEO’s shins, flipped, and landed in his arms like a rom-com meet-cute except both of them looked horrified.
The hallway went dead silent.
The CEO set Karen down, straightened his tie, and said, “I assume there’s a good reason my quarterly strategy meeting is being interrupted by what appears to be… recreational furniture abuse.”

Dave, still upside down in his own chair two meters away, raised one hand. “Team building, sir. Very important for morale.”
The CEO stared at him for three full seconds. Then he looked at the whiteboard full of times and names. Then back at Dave.
“Move the starting line back ten feet,” he said. “And someone get me a chair that doesn’t squeak.”
He raced next.

The man was terrifyingly good. Perfect form, minimal drag, used the slight dip in the carpet like a pro. He beat the previous best time by nine seconds. When he crossed the finish line he didn’t even stand up. Just rolled to a stop, checked his watch, and nodded like he’d expected nothing less.
After that, the tournament became serious.

People started bringing modifications. Someone taped pool noodles to the armrests for cushioning. The intern from marketing added a tiny flag. Dave’s chair got a second coat of WD-40 and a prayer. The IT guy rigged a laser timer between two monitors.
By 5:15 the building security had been called twice. By 5:30 they’d been bribed with leftover bagels and joined the cheering section.

The final race came down to Dave and the CEO.
Dave’s chair was making a noise that suggested it might explode. The CEO’s chair looked like it had been engineered by NASA. They lined up. Someone yelled “Go!” and they were off.
Dave had the better start. The CEO had better everything else. Halfway down the hall Dave realized he was losing and tried the forbidden technique: leaning forward to reduce wind resistance. The chair, already at its limit, decided it had suffered enough. One wheel locked. The entire thing flipped.
Dave went airborne.
He landed on the mail cart again, this time taking it with him like a sled. The cart, the chair, and Dave slid the final twenty feet together in a glorious, clattering mess that stopped exactly at the CEO’s polished shoes.
The CEO looked down at the wreckage. Dave looked up, one envelope stuck to his forehead like a name tag.
“Team building,” Dave wheezed.

The CEO nodded slowly. Then he smiled for the first time anyone had ever seen. “Next week,” he said, “we’re doing it in the parking garage. Bring helmets.”
Dave’s chair never squeaked again. It didn’t have the chance. It was retired with honors to the executive floor, where it still sits behind the CEO’s desk like a trophy. Dave got a promotion he didn’t deserve and a new chair that cost more than rent. The ficus plant was replaced by a more resilient model that everyone still ignores.
And every Tuesday at 4pm, Floor 14 clears the hallway.