I worked for a small company in 2017/2018 that had recently expanded its building and added offices into their second floor, which had previously been a storage area. The second floor offices didn’t have any windows, but is also the spot that they decided IT would go.
One day I came in and the fluorescent lights didn’t turn on. There happened to be some random old lamp (I think from the 60’s or 70’s) in a storage closet so I grabbed it and put it on the intersection of 4 cubicles to light the area. There were only 6 IT people that worked in the area and as people were coming into work, no one mentioned the light. We all just did our work.
Halfway though the day, one of our senior devs asked “hey, so what’s with the light?”
I let him know the overhead lights didn’t come on when I got here this morning so I just grabbed a lamp.
5 of us discussing the lighting situation all vocally said “yea, this is much better, the fluorescent lights suck.” One person was quiet.
The overhead lights were “fixed” not too long after but people started opting for turning them off in favor of the lamp. This upset 1 of the 6 IT people working in the area.
It eventually became an HR issue, and the one person won; to the detriment of the other 5.
I ended up quitting about 2 weeks after that, not from the light issue; but I let them believe it was a large contributing factor in the exit interview.
Ooooh story time…
I worked for a small company in 2017/2018 that had recently expanded its building and added offices into their second floor, which had previously been a storage area. The second floor offices didn’t have any windows, but is also the spot that they decided IT would go.
One day I came in and the fluorescent lights didn’t turn on. There happened to be some random old lamp (I think from the 60’s or 70’s) in a storage closet so I grabbed it and put it on the intersection of 4 cubicles to light the area. There were only 6 IT people that worked in the area and as people were coming into work, no one mentioned the light. We all just did our work.
Halfway though the day, one of our senior devs asked “hey, so what’s with the light?”
I let him know the overhead lights didn’t come on when I got here this morning so I just grabbed a lamp.
5 of us discussing the lighting situation all vocally said “yea, this is much better, the fluorescent lights suck.” One person was quiet.
The overhead lights were “fixed” not too long after but people started opting for turning them off in favor of the lamp. This upset 1 of the 6 IT people working in the area.
It eventually became an HR issue, and the one person won; to the detriment of the other 5.
I ended up quitting about 2 weeks after that, not from the light issue; but I let them believe it was a large contributing factor in the exit interview.