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The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

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Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#281

Post by jwr »

xur17 wrote: post #240
jwr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, music is more distracting than people think. Its effects can be subtle: it engages your creative brain, so you end up working like crazy, only to notice afterwards that the work was not needed at all (there was a better solution, but your creative abilities were busy processing music). Don't listen to music while doing creative work. Use noise, like sounds of the sea (I use an app called "Naturespace" for high-q…

I find music to work best when I'm doing a semi-repetitive task, or if I've already designed the system, and I'm just writing it down. I've definitely noticed that it results in sub-optimal code if this is not the case.

Yes! That was exactly my point. It works great for non-creative tasks, but can impact creativity and problem solving skills significantly, without you noticing.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#282

Post by devmunchies »

Silfen wrote: post #280
PascLeRasc wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get pretty significant SAD and 5000 IUs of Vitamin D helps a lot, but it's not enough for me. I'm planning to move to somewhere else in a year or two, maybe Seattle.

I'm a Seattle native and love it here. Unfortunately it is not a good place to get sunlight. We are very far north (for an American city) and overcast for most of the year. Seattle averages about 5.5 hours of sun per day. San Francisco averages nearly 8.5.

Why would you use avg sunlight per day? Thats takes the avg sunlight per year and maps it onto a daily avg, which is useless as a metric.

You want sunny days per year. Which Seattle gets less than 90. Most cities in California get over 200.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#283

Post by Silfen »

devmunchies wrote: post #282
Silfen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Seattle native and love it here. Unfortunately it is not a good place to get sunlight. We are very far north (for an American city) and overcast for most of the year. Seattle averages about 5.5 hours of sun per day. San Francisco averages nearly 8.5.

Why would you use avg sunlight per day? Thats takes the avg sunlight per year and maps it onto a daily avg, which is useless as a metric. You want sunny days per year. Which Seattle gets less than 90. Most cities in California get over 200.

That's a good point and a better metric, but it's not meaningless. Very long summer days are worth something! They're just not helpful with SAD.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#284

Post by nine_k »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #273
nine_k wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bright full-spectrum lamps help. There are some sold as therapeutic devices.

Can you attest to that personally? I looked into them for treating SAD and none of the Amazon top-reviewed ones seemed consistent, and I couldn't find much well-regarded literature either.

I never had a SAD but I put full-spectrum lamps around my apartment, and my entire family approved of that. I think I feel better under that light than under the typical yellow-glow "warm" CFL light, I fell less tired.

The lamps are CRI 90-95, a mix of 5500K and 4000K; they produce pretty bright light (4500 lumen in smaller rooms, 6000 lumen in the bigger room, 3000+ lumen in the bathroom), and it's pretty comparable with the light from the window in the summer.

Note that I live in a NYC apartment which is not exactly spacious; in a typical house, I'd use 1.5 to 2x the amount of light. One of my friends who happens to have particularly large rooms uses 4 to 6 T8 tubes to light them; the tubes are full-spectrum ones used to light movie sets, something like KinoFlo.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#285

Post by adiusmus »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #270
adiusmus wrote: post #39

Not a perk. I fired an employer for failing to provide natural sunlight for a reasonable amount of time throughout the day. I’ve also rejected offers involving lack of sunlight. One place adjusted to this requirement quite well. Apparently I was the first candidate to even bring this up when I asked about the working environment. The cost to my health is measurable.

You're my hero. I'd like to hear about what else you consider essential before hiring an employer.

Well it’s called a job interview for a reason. Inter+view. Prepare for interviews as if you’re hiring them and you’ll have plenty of questions. Your employer needs to deliver as much as you do. Negotiate!

I know it’s a different mindset. Do it long enough and you realise you might as well work for yourself. Or work on contracts and sub out what you can’t directly do but are willing to manage.

My old mindset when I started out was that employers know everything and are all powerful. In reality they had better have more experience than you in multiple ways or they’re going to be fired either by the market or when you have to quit (which is obviously you firing them).

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#286

Post by artursapek »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #263
leesec wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably well aware of this, but Vitamin D supplements have been life changing for me. There was an article a while back pleading to the FDA to fix the recommended daily limit, suggesting it might be 10x too low. I take 10,000 IU a day and the difference is very noticeable.

I get pretty significant SAD and 5000 IUs of Vitamin D helps a lot, but it's not enough for me. I'm planning to move to somewhere else in a year or two, maybe Seattle.

Seattle is cloudy a lot of the year. I'd reconsider that.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#287

Post by artursapek »

devmunchies wrote: post #282
Silfen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Seattle native and love it here. Unfortunately it is not a good place to get sunlight. We are very far north (for an American city) and overcast for most of the year. Seattle averages about 5.5 hours of sun per day. San Francisco averages nearly 8.5.

Why would you use avg sunlight per day? Thats takes the avg sunlight per year and maps it onto a daily avg, which is useless as a metric. You want sunny days per year. Which Seattle gets less than 90. Most cities in California get over 200.

Denver/Boulder area gets 300!

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#288

Post by jedberg »

TomK32 wrote: post #267
jedberg wrote: post #266

Every place I worked, I optimized for a window seat. I would volunteer to sit next to the loudest and stinkiest people if that's what it took, because those things didn't bother me (noise cancelling headphones and my nose doesn't really work anyway). I would sit far away from all the other amenities, or close to them, whichever was worse, just to get a window. Somehow I got really lucky, and in 16 years of working in…

Time to put some apple seeds in the ground :)

Ironically, apple trees don't grow all that well near Apple. What they cut down were 80 year old redwoods.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#289

Post by cjarrett »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #263
leesec wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably well aware of this, but Vitamin D supplements have been life changing for me. There was an article a while back pleading to the FDA to fix the recommended daily limit, suggesting it might be 10x too low. I take 10,000 IU a day and the difference is very noticeable.

I get pretty significant SAD and 5000 IUs of Vitamin D helps a lot, but it's not enough for me. I'm planning to move to somewhere else in a year or two, maybe Seattle.

Seattle will get you SAD during winter. The summers are great, but winters for the past few years have been unrelentingly overcast. I was also heavily warned to buy those bulbs to put in the office by a coworker who suffered from it.

Re: The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light

#290

Post by msisk6 »

drewg123 wrote: post #190
gambiting wrote: post #71

Oh yes please. I work as a games programmer at a massive studio and it looks like 90% of people here prefer complete darkness during the day, to the point where they have these umbrella-like covers above their desks to cover any light from the lamps that somehow miraculously are still on. Me and few other people occupy a little corner next to a window that we stubbornly refuse to close the blinds on, despite bi-weekl…

I like natural light at a medium level (eg, blinds 1/2 closed). I despise bright artificial light. When I went to work at Google, in a large windowless room, I was one of those people with a cover over their cube. Without the cover, one of the rows of artificial light would shine right in my eyes.

Same when I worked at Rackspace. I was in a football-field-size windows-less room (there were actual windows at the periphery but I was so far away it didn't matter) right under a fluorescent light fixture shining right in my eyes. Most of us had these gigantic plastic leaf shades we found in the kids section of Ikea blocking the light. Some folks went as far to drape their cube in surplus camo netting.

Now I'm in an office sitting right next to a 10x10-foot east facing window with lots of light and views outside. But I nearly always have the shade down since the sun shines right in and blinds me every morning.

All this could be solved with private offices. I just hope I live to see the day when our line of work reverts back to private offices from this open space insanity.

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