Thinking Inside the Box: The Light, It Burns!

There's little doubt that one of the most evil of all office creations is bright fluorescent lighting. The harsh glare is so intense that even a passing gaze into a bare bulb carries the same danger as staring at the sun itself for over 40 minutes. The reason offices insist on these bulbs is that they don't run on electricity, they run on human souls. That's why, when you sit under them day after day, you slowly feel your energy and creativity sapped away until all that's left is a husk that will mindlessly complete whatever task is laid before it.

Once, I nearly escaped from those dreadful lights, but evil always seems to find a way.

A few months back we were decorating our office for Christmas and someone, a prophet perhaps, or a knower of truth, had the wonderful idea of turning all the lights off so that the only illumination came from the lights on the tree and the strands decorating the cubicles. The results were incredible, within days we had our vitality back, and it was so much easier to come to work every morning. Of course, that could have been the afterglow of all the holiday parties we had been attending, because we all know Christmas cheer is best enjoyed in liquid form anyway.

For a month or so life was great, for the first time in ages I wasn't spending my break time looking for other jobs and trying to figure out if I had the qualifications necessary to be a nuclear research engineer or an Alaskan crab fisherman (the answers, respectively and surprisingly, are yes and no). While my work wasn't any more exciting, I was still able to power through it because the new mood lighting just made me happy inside. Meanwhile, over my head, the now dark fluorescent bulbs waited in silence, biding their time before they struck again. Though they are evil, the lights are also wise, and they knew it would only be a matter of time before they feasted on me again.

They were right.

Early in January the boss decreed it was time to take down the decorations. We knew we couldn't really put up much of a fight; stockings hung on the doors in April might cost us a bit of professional appearance, so we hauled all of our red and green trinkets off to the storage closet.

And then the lights came back on.

The flash was so sudden and violent, I had to shield my eyes and fumble for my chair. We tried to scrap the lights and use table lamps instead or at least turn the wattage down and only use half the lights, thereby prolonging our survival, but it wasn't going to happen.

And so here I am once again. Every day a little piece of me dies and floats up into those bulbs, and my resolve continues to weaken.

Abandon all hope ye who sit beneath the bulbs.