There is a light that never goes out

justin monkey, Ravings Leave a Comment

I spend an inordinate amount of time sitting in front of a computer. I realized last night while going through my typical Facebook/blogs/forums routine that, even when I’m not at work, I spend a crapload of time sitting in front of my monitors.

Ultimately, I’m all about getting my daily dose of rads while I rot my brains chuckling at lolcats and maybe even popping out a line or hundred of code. What I’ve never thought about, or even had to think about is how much I’m moving around while I’m “moving about” onscreen.

That sounds weird doesn’t it? Well, let me set up why this concept suddenly became my biggest daily issue.

In my office at work my area used to be a gigantic open section of floor. At some point very flimsy walls were hung from the ceiling and doors were hung on some of the holes in these walls to form rudimentary offices. One of those caves is my office. What didn’t change, however, is the lighting. The lighting setup for the gigantic open area was left as-is for the current setup of five offices, one conference room and a whole crapload of cubicles. What this means for me is that the single switch that controls the lights for my office, and all the areas in-between, is about fifteen yards away from where I sit and around all of the cubicles.

That really never bothered me. I’m at work, the lights are on, it’s time to get crackin’ on what needs to be done. Sure there have been a couple days of severe hangover that made me wish I could turn out the lights and just curl up, but it really hasn’t been an issue.

Last Thursday night, however, everything changed. Apparently a crack team of commando electricians spent their Thursday night rewiring my little area with motion-detecting sensors for all of the lights. Now my office can be dark while the rest of the floor is lit up.

All in all that’s very responsible of them. Mythbusters has proven that it’s more economical to turn out those nasty fluorescent lights rather than leave them on all the time, so I’m a believer in the off switch. What I’m hating, however, is the fact that the damn motion detecting sensor is a low-bid piece of shit.

Three times, yes one, two, three freakin’ times the lights have gone out while I have been writing this piece.

If you’ve been around me for any given amount of time then you know that I’m not really one to stand still well. I’m a fidgeter and it’s genetic. I almost always have one or both of my legs bouncing like crazy whether I’m sitting or standing. When I’m working and my brain is pretty much just wired to my fingers, it gets even worse. Here I am, wriggling like a puppy and the damn lights are still going out.

The ultimate beauty of this change, however, is the fact that noone is stepping up and taking responsibility for it. I’ve talked to three different “people of authority” and each and every one of them has pointed me in a different direction: all wrong. Times like this remind me how laughable bureaucracy really is. Something major happened yet nobody knows who did it or even authorized it.

This afternoon, I am going to stop bitching about the lights that keep going out on me. The way I look at it, lights on means business and productivity and lights out mean nap time. When I crawl back into my hole after lunch and the lights go out on me, I will take that as a sign from the mysterious “Powers That Be” who authorized the installation of our wonderful new lights as a signal to take a nap. I guess they really do care about employee engagement around here.

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