When I first went to high school, I bought (in a back-to-school shopping sesh with my mom) what I thought was the perfectly cool school bag, and it was of the messenger variety. Now, for the next year, I would commute to school (via subway from Queens to the Bronx daily, a combined trip of approximately 3 hours) with a hundred pound weight on my back, but damn if it wasn’t stylish. It was, however, constrained to one shoulder.
And that made all the difference. Women everywhere suffer from chronically bad neck, shoulder, and back pains which arise as a result of our dumb habit of carrying an enormous weight on one shoulder. It is a true fact that, in a relaxed posture, one of my shoulders rests higher than the other, and if I were to lift weights above my head in each hand, one would appear to rise higher than the other. That is the extent to which I effed up my back wearing bad bags over the years.
Now, I crack my neck incessantly, wring my hands, wrists, and shoulders, rotate my spine to get it to pop, and rub my shoulder muscles to ease the strain daily. I am all fucked up, but I still need bags that work!
The newest addition to my bag collection, kindly provided as a test and review unit by the people at Speck, is super cute, functional, and durable. You can read the post I wrote about it here. But it’s still a one shoulder option. My other, work bag, is huge, heavy, and very un-stylish. Two shoulders though.
Isn’t there ANYTHING on the market which will work for me? 2 shoulders, business friendly, airport friendly, laptop bag purposed? Come on! The concept of this miracle bag has made it’s way to my holiday wishlist.
the ergonomist in me is so happy that you are writing about this! not so happy about your back
i found a pretty awesome backpack/laptop bag in a bag from golla – golla.com, in the backpack section. it is missing an easily accessible pocket for keys etc when you’re out and about but other than that it is teh awesomz.
I have always been a fan of STM bags from Australia – http://www.stmbags.com/
They are purpose made laptop backpacks, and a pretty indestructible. The one I use now I have had since uni, and it is still going strong.
I have also heard that the TSA is approving airport friendly bags, as in laptop bags you dont need to open at the scanner, but nothing recently.
However, when it comes down to style v ergonomics, I will come down on the ergonomics side every time – too many ppl in my family have bad backs for me not to be careful.
Cheers,
Consultant Insider
Don’t know if you’ve heard of Crumpler bags, I have 2 (messenger and backpack) and they are extremely durable. They also make a few backpacks for laptops if that’s the thing you need. Since I’m still in school I have to carry a lot of heavy books and a crumpler laptopbag is good for that purpose as well. http://www.crumplerbags.com/lite/english/products.html
Hope you find something good!
Greetings from Holland (the one with the windmills and such)