
The #1 Office Perk? Natural Light - Ianvdl
https://hbr.org/2018/09/the-1-office-perk-natural-light
======
l33tbro
Currently working alone in my own windowless office in an almost completely
windowless building. Compared to the previous 'open-plan' gig where I sat
opposite opposite Jill-from-Comms and Sales-bro Bryan, it rules so hard.

So yeah,"the #1 office perk" for me is not getting interrupted with inane shit
every ten minutes.

~~~
bstar77
My solution was to buy a pair of headphones with good sound isolation. The
building could be burning down and I'd wouldn't give a shit.

~~~
beat
I find it difficult to work while wearing headphones. Music is very
distracting.

I just spent two and a half years working from home, where I could leave the
tv on in the background. That was awesome. A little motion out of the corner
of my eye, some noise, but nothing structured in a way I cared about. Loud
reality shows about mechanical stuff were my noise-companion. I could just
_ignore_ them.

Music is full of structure. I love it far too much to work with it.

On the positive side, the "open office" I'm in now has some restaurant-style
booths set up with glass doors. They're lifesavers.

~~~
jwr
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-quality audio).

~~~
beat
I'm a musician, so I find most music to be almost ridiculously interesting.
Leads me to thinking about the music rather than the work I should be doing.
And I find headphones to be physically uncomfortable very quickly.

~~~
abledon
Haha same! Any melody at all totally refocuses me into the song, how the
fingering and chords would be played on a guitar , what riffs they are reusing
and Which audio effect pedals are being used for the music (mostly rock /
indie / pop )

~~~
vibrolax
Double same! Doesn't matter whether I like the music or not: it must be
dissected layer by layer. Some of my non-musician friends wonder why I never
have "background" music on at home.

~~~
beat
I'm more likely to pick up a guitar and play something myself than to put
someone else's recordings on at home.

------
gambiting
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-weekly requests to do so from our artists. If
I had to work in the darkness I'd genuinely consider leaving - it gives me a
headache.

~~~
taneq
I think it's interesting that the comments here seem almost universally in
favour of bright natural lighting, when clearly there are plenty of people (at
least in gamedev) who feel otherwise. I tend to prefer a dimly lit room and am
perfectly happy with the only light being from my monitors. Then again as an
ex-gamedev troglodyte I'm also happiest working from 3pm-1am...

~~~
nilkn
One fairly universal current I've observed though is a dislike for strong
artificial lighting, particularly overhead lighting. I can work very
productively in an abundance of natural light or in a basically dark room lit
only by the glow of monitors and RGB accessories, but put me in a room without
windows and with supermarket-style lighting and I'll be miserable.

In my home office, I'm fortunate to have both a large window and a simple IKEA
floor lamp (something like this:
[https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10394129/](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10394129/)).
I alternate between the two, but never turn on the overhead lighting on the
ceiling fan.

~~~
gh02t
Part of that might be the harsh nature of fluorescent lighting used in a lot
of offices. Natural light is broad spectrum, but typical fluorescent lighting
is a few sharp peaks. Combined with the 120 Hz flicker common in many I find
them pretty unpleasant, especially for long periods of time.

I find I don't mind higher CRI and higher frequency lighting nearly as much.
You can get that in fluorescent lights and they're not as bad as they used to
be, but the really good ones are expensive.

------
dasmoth
Natural light is good, but the office isn't the place I crave it the most. And
as other have alluded to, I'd _much_ rather have a dingy personal cave than a
bright but shared space.

So #1 perk for me: enough schedule flexibility that I can ensure I can have
some outdoor time during daylight hours every day, even in winter.

~~~
juanuys
Yes, this is why I try and get WFH gigs over winter so I can do a lunch-time
run. Getting up at 6AM in winter for a run isn't going to happen ;-)

------
TheCapn
My personal experience/preference is merely that a "change of scenery" is a
highly favorable perk. I have a private office with a window, and after
struggling against code for long enough it is so nice to turn my gaze outside
and watch the dog park next door.

But I say _scenery_ change, because one of my favorite things about my job is
that I work off site frequently at industrial plants, agricultural facilities
and the like. Its like a moderate vacation to just be away from a desk, even
though my laptop is attached to me the entire time. Working in a dingy
concrete bunker can be as much of a perk as it is to look out my window.

Mostly just monotonous environments tend to be what bothers me most I think.
My last job was at a business attached to a mall (you could walk out the doors
into the mall food court on the second level). Coffee breaks were often just
walking around the downtown core or through the attached public buildings over
walkways. Changing your environment is such a massive thing for me to help the
day/week/month/years not feel like one long slog

~~~
PascLeRasc
There was a tweet going around yesterday with around 500k likes about how we
all secretly love to rearrange our rooms to get a "new me" feeling. I think a
constant change of scenery is really important for us to not get stuck in
negative mindsets.

------
another-cuppa
I think some comments are missing the point. I used to work in an office that
definitely had "natural light" because it did have windows, but the view from
the windows was basically just other grey buildings about 10 metres away. I
now work in an office where I can look out and see grass, trees, and the sky,
and it's much nicer.

~~~
ehnto
Trees and greenery in general take a space from "concrete wasteland" to "human
living space" for me. I have no idea why we build plazas as big concrete
slabs. Who thought that was what people wanted?

Who has every thought to themselves, gee, I sure wish there was more flat
concrete to look at.

~~~
jrockway
> Who thought that was what people wanted?

You don't have to pay someone to mow the concrete slab, I guess. (And in the
winter, don't shovel the snow, just make a sign that says: "warning,
slippery!")

~~~
monocasa
It's supposedly so that events are easier to setup as "it's a more free form
space". IMO it doesn't really make it all that much easier, and looks like
shit when an event isn't going on.

------
jedberg
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 offices, I spent
about 12 of them near a window (thanks in part to large suburban offices of
Silicon Valley that offered lots of window seats). And for the most part I
didn't have to deal with loud or stinky people or being far/close to other
amenities.

Now I work from home, where I can see trees out my window. Sadly, Apple cut
some of them down to make room for the offramp to their spaceship, so now I
also see lights and power lines, but still tree too.

~~~
TomK32
Time to put some apple seeds in the ground :)

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

------
Legogris
Am I the only one here who actually likes it dark? It might be healthier with
natural light, but my personal preferences has always been darkness.

I wonder if it is related to coming from a northern country (Scandinavia)
where ~1/4 of the year is really dark.

~~~
CalRobert
My preference is nearly a dark cave and people think I'm odd. I also use a
plugin to make FF have dark backgrounds and light text. I don't enjoy
squinting all the time.

In at least one case, it wasn't just me. I used to work editing photos on
California's central coast and after we moved to a building with loads and
loads of skylights, and got a bunch of new glossy-screen iMacs, it was really
hard to get color accuracy if you wore anything but a black or white shirt. It
was like staring at a mirror all day long. Eventually we got umbrellas to blot
out the sun and that helped.

~~~
EricLemieux
What plugin are you using in firefox?

I have just been using stylus and using dark themes for sites I use often, but
would love a more automated approach, especially for sites I don't use that
often.

~~~
t0mbstone
I use this addon called "Dark Reader" for Chrome and it's amazing! I can't
live without it. Eye strain is a very real problem for me without it.
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-
reader/eimadp...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dark-
reader/eimadpbcbfnmbkopoojfekhnkhdbieeh?hl=en-US)

------
yitchelle
Is this really considered a perk? It is a bit like getting paid is a perk.

I work in Germany where direct access to natural sunlight is part of our OH&S
policies.

~~~
baby
I’ve worked in an office without windows, really takes a toll on you.

~~~
emidln
My favorite work site (outside of my home) was an interior office that I
usually kept dark with the door closed. Time would fade away and I could focus
on the problem at hand. I didn't keep a clock visible on my screen, and so
sometimes I'd come out after 9pm. Other times, I'd be around 1pm or 2pm. I'd
go take a walk if I wanted natural light or non-textual conversation. I would
love for a similar setup at a future job.

If an employer doesn't offer remote work or a door, my rate goes up a lot.

~~~
moftz
That might be fine for a single person but having someone in your life means
the monastic office thing isn't going to work out. You both need to get home
at a decent hour, ideally coming and going at the same time everyday to keep
schedules lined up if you want to spend any time at all during the week.

------
hatsubai
The interesting thing is that too much light can take its toll on productivity
as well. When I was working at another company, it was inside an essentially
"all glass, modern" building on the top floor overseeing a creek which led to
the Bay. Between about 10 am until 3 pm, everyone would always scramble to
find whatever random objects they could to block the light because management
never paid for any blinds. We'd grab task boards, company banners, and
anything else we could get our hands on so we could block the sun and work.
We'd have to constantly shift them, or ourselves, as the sun changed
positions, which created some awkward situations when half the team began to
huddle in one small, shady area in the building at peak times. Needless to
say, as someone who prefers darker environments, my productivity wasn't quite
as high as I would have personally liked.

~~~
H1Supreme
My desk gets the full force of the sun after noon. I have blinds, and still
build a makeshift sun-blocker out of an old box. Too much light can definitely
be a negative.

------
toomanybeersies
I really wish it was possible to somehow use my laptop outside when it's
sunny. It's a shame to spend the prime hours of the day inside, and then spend
all your spare time in the dark at night.

I get really jealous of the construction workers when it's a nice sunny day
outside. I've worked a few different outdoor jobs, and there's nothing quite
like working on a sunny day, it really lifts the spirit.

~~~
inawarminister
I've bought an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite recently, and spent a few hours under
the mid day sun in the riverside reading some books. It's worth it just for
that!

Shame there is no e-ink laptop sometimes soon, most likely...

~~~
toomanybeersies
If they could make a 11" or larger e-ink display with a 24 Hz refresh rate,
I'd buy it in an instant.

------
srge
Very often on TV when I see office spaces in the US, I see rarely natural
lights. They often seem to be underground or inside some refurbished
industrial buildings.

Here in France we all have well lit offices with natural lights and windows.
Well not all but the vast majority.

To me it seems punitive to work in a blind/artificially lit office.

~~~
rplnt
I'd guess the number one reason is it's easier (cheaper) to film if you don't
have to fake natural light.

~~~
srge
Not only films but documentaries or YouTube videos. Seems like a lot of
workers in the US are working in such environments.

------
adiusmus
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.

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

~~~
adiusmus
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).

------
scotty79
That's a great excuse to keep open space floor plan. "This way all 100 of you
can have windows."

~~~
jessaustin
Whatever it takes for the architect to be able to sleep at night. Then during
construction, the client can tell the builder to obscure the whole wall of
windows with conference rooms and managers' offices.

------
cphoover
[https://products0.imgix.drizly.com/ci-natural-
light-4e47720c...](https://products0.imgix.drizly.com/ci-natural-
light-4e47720c32369068.png?auto=format%2Ccompress&fm=jpeg&q=20)

~~~
smudgymcscmudge
Is it really surprising that free beer is a popular perk?

------
mlthoughts2018
Every day I am the first to show up at my company, and I get maybe ~ 1 hour of
nice, quiet work time with low lighting from the windows with overhead lights
off.

Then the second person who comes in every day shows up and flips all the
overhead lights on every god damn day.

When I’m working and the lights flip, I get a sense of rage and depression. I
think it will be the reason why I quit this job.

~~~
sleepychu
I don't want to condescend but have you tried talking to the person switching
on the lights? Maybe you could come to a compromise.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Then I’m just the whiny asshole or primadonna or something. It’s not possible
to have these preferences treated in an adult way in modern corporations, and
anyone the issue got escalated to will just see it as whining.

You have to keep your head down and act like it’s Candide: whatever your
company currently does is the best possible thing they could ever do.

~~~
s73v3r_
"Then I’m just the whiny asshole or primadonna or something."

The way you approach doing this goes a long, long way toward how you're
perceived.

"It’s not possible to have these preferences treated in an adult way in modern
corporations, and anyone the issue got escalated to will just see it as
whining."

I imagine you think this is the case because you see others asking for similar
types of things as also being "whining". All you have to do is ask politely
and calmly, and things should be fine. You might not get your way, but asking
for something isn't automatically seen as "whining" by most people.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Why do you think I perceive other askers as whiny? I don’t. I think corporate
culture is sorely anti-humane, and we need better sociological solutions in
dev teams and orgs, closer to what is described in Peopleware.

I take other peoples’ preferences very seriously and treat them with respect.
People should at least be heard and compromises attempted.

Management and capricious brogrammer types in every company I’ve ever worked
for across 12 years however do not act this way at all, and reasonable
requests will only be used against you. This has been outwardly and
definitively proven time after time.

~~~
s73v3r_
That has not been the case in any of the jobs I've worked at over my career.
You work in shitty companies.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
It has been the case in all the companies I’ve heard about from peers as well,
which includes several of the “big four” tech companies, prominent startups,
finance companies, etc.

It sounds like your working experience has been wildly unrepresentative of the
reality of modern corporations.

------
rdl
Maybe natural light is a perk because it is nice to have (sometimes), but a
door/actual office with a lock and soundproofing would then be a minimum
baseline requirement.

(I’d honestly prefer windowless to a window I couldn’t control, too. Windows
with effective shades are nice, particularly if they can be opened for fresh
air, but I’d be completely fine with a windowless office with a substantial
door, great artificial full spectrum lighting, and HVAC under my control 24x7.
Especially if my door and lock had a security rating.

------
markc
I highly value a good view, and lucked into a lovely space on the 8th floor in
a corner with large picture windows on 2 sides, and views of MIT and East
Kendall Square nearby, and Central and Harvard square in the distance. The
bottom half of my view is very green, mostly trees, with a few buildings
nestled among them. The top half is blue sky, white clouds.

I watch the slow progress of several buildings under construction. A huge
tower near Central has appeared, the stairway core apparently. Two big
projects to the north also, near the cinema and Donnelly field.

Soon I'll see the first yellows, reds and oranges of fall.

I enjoy the view so much that I brought in binoculars to see more detail. I
have a sort of hobby of identifying landmarks visually and then finding them
on google maps. This can be surprisingly difficult to do. The relative scale
of things is surprising. Things that loom large in my view don't look big on
the map, and vice versa.

I can visually trace a good portion of my bike path to work, as I live near
the top of a distant hill. I identify the landmarks on that route.

Despite these treasures I only remember to look up at the view a few times a
week. I sometimes forget to open the blinds for days at a time. Very sad! I'm
happy that this article reminded me of this great pleasure. It's trite, but
life is short; enjoy the view.

------
hakkoru
I work in a SCIF. The most natural light I get at my desk is the sun peeking
out of the blinds in the morning. In addition, we keep most of the lights off,
for that underground bunker aesthetic I'm assuming. One of the SCIFs here
doesn't even have windows.

I don't mind it that much, and I usually leave work while the sun is still
out. I can see some people having an issue with it, however.

~~~
hindsightbias
Why would a SCIF have outside windows?

~~~
hakkoru
It can be hard to avoid if you're renting a space and you can't afford to be
picky.

------
ptero
I am curious whether it is the light or the view that makes the difference. If
it is the light I wonder if a technical fix is possible: a short waveguide
and/or a few mirrors into a "micro sun" diffuser in the room instead of a
light bulb? It should be relatively cheap if the benefits are as big as
claimed.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I think it's the view - we have blinds you can see out of but darken the space
by a ton, and everyone keeps em down all the time.

------
3rdAccount
Our old office looked like a cave and the new one has bright lighting and
windows everywhere. I vastly prefer the old one, but most people prefer the
new.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Bright lights I don’t care for. But natural light I like.

------
Aaargh20318
We just moved into a new office and one of the best things about it is that we
now have small offices and I can keep the curtains closed and the lights off
all day. Why would you want _more_ light, especially natural light ?

I never open my curtains at home either.

~~~
matwood
And I can't get enough natural light. I hate artificial light, and require
windows anywhere I work. When the temperature is right, I even sit on my back
porch to work.

For me, sitting in the dark is depressing.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> For me, sitting in the dark is depressing.

I feel much better in a dimly lit room. Not pitch black but a twilight kind of
darkness.

However, I am autistic so that may have something to do with it. I only
recently realised this. Ever since I've lived on my own I kept my curtains
closed and my room dimly lit, but I never made the link to my autism or
sensory issues. It seems kind of obvious in hindsight.

For some reason things that make 'normal' people happy have the opposite
effect on me, and vice versa. For example, socialising makes me feel depressed
while the more time I spend alone the happier I am. I don't think I've ever
felt lonely either.

~~~
wrong_variable
I understand how you feel, I do the same thing but most of my friends think
someday I am going to shoot up a school or something.

To many people NOT socializing doesn't compute.

------
chrxr
Several people in my team (sysadmins) go to reasonably extreme lengths to
eliminate natural light from their working environment...

------
montenegrohugo
Natural light or artificial light that recreates the natural light spectrum is
good. Everything else is bad.

There is an overabundance of sharp blue light in most modern light sources. I
highly recommend either using tinted computer glasses when working or
something like f.lux

Even worse are flickering lights. Even at a high (nearly imperceptible)
frequency, I have seen so many colleagues(myself included) suffer from
headaches due to them.

What should be done? Either invest in better smoother lighting for your
workers or let plenty of natural light inside.

------
DenisM
Rarely discussed is the fact that professional phography lighting has high CRI
and is not that expensive. There are plenty of LED panels on Amazon that can
be rigged to work as desk lights.

Also, you can buy a professinal CRI meter so that you can get an idea of what
you’re buying here.

Outside LED there are also high-CRI CFL lights which are easier to fit into
overhead lights compared to LED. Still they need to be measured.

~~~
thekingofh
Can you explain what you mean? Is this similar to natural lighting somehow?

~~~
DenisM
Photographers like their lighting to be as close to natural as possible for
best pictures. They can tell the effect when taking pictures, they have
measuring tools to understand the light before taking pictures, and they have
equipment (bulbs, panels, etc) made to satisfy their use cases which they can
actually evaluate for quality.

Light quality is generally measured in CRI (color rendering index), with 100
being sunlight. Best professional photo lights give you up to 97 CRI. I don't
know how closely CRI reflects the biological effect of the sun light, but we
sort of can judge it by proxy - CRI reflects photography requirements, which
correlates with closeness to sun light spectrum, which correlates with
biologically positive effects. Even being a proxy, this measuring ability is
still vastly better anything we have for the "health" light which you can't
really measure except in a control group study which none of us can do.

In practice I suggest going to Amazon and shopping for high-CRI lights, such
as photography LED panels, about $100-$200 a pop. They're not big enough to
light up a room, but they can light up your desk or maybe cubicle. I bought a
few and the light is very, very pleasant. Alternatively shop for high-CRI CFL
lights to replace the ceiling lights, those can light up the room. I haven't
tried that yet though.

It might also be useful to buy a CRI meter so that you know where you stand.
Expensive as they are, might be still worth it considering the benefits. Also
maybe pool money with friends on this - you're not going to use it a whole
lot.

------
tdehollain
I sometimes wonder how light fixtures that mimic natural light are not a thing
yet. They exist, but somehow they remained a niche product.

~~~
JackMorgan
Oh they do, but they are expensive and rare.
[http://www.coelux.com/en/products/index](http://www.coelux.com/en/products/index)

I have been trying to figure out how to make my own, but it's tricky.

~~~
tdehollain
I initially thought "it must be pretty expensive, like $1,500"...but no, it's
actually $30,000!! No wonder you're trying to build it yourself.

------
peterwwillis
If a plant can't grow there, I don't wanna work there. (Grow lights &
hydroponics are just The Matrix for plants)

------
forapurpose
I very much prefer natural light to artificial light. I've wondered, regarding
lighting windowless areas:

Why don't buildings put natural light collectors ("windows") on exterior
surfaces, and use light redirectors ("mirrors" and maybe "fiber") to shunt the
light to places that otherwise lack it. The light could be output through the
same fixtures that host artificial light sources. (Sensors and dimmers on
artificial light sources could compensate for variations in natural light.)

It would be much more pleasant than artificial light and it would save energy.
Perhaps the ROI isn't high enough.

------
wallflower
This is an unpopular opinion. You can train yourself to work in relatively
noisy environments. The mind is plastic and adaptable. It is not going to
happen right away. The first step is to not plug in your headphones when you
go to a coffee shop. Enjoy the ambient chatter. Don't try to do any work.
After a while, you may try reading a book or a newspaper. It is my belief that
headphones can breed dependency on them to focus. Kind of like you may be
anchoring your flow state to the simple act of donning your headphones. It
might not work for you. Especially if you pre-decide it won't work. Remember
the mind is a powerful tool. It may work for you if you start trying out life
without headphones.

------
Invictus0
I'm a mechanical engineer. Engineering workplaces are notorious for poor
sunlight exposure. Even the big tech companies develop their products in
windowless rooms. And forget it if you have to go anywhere near a factory
floor, it feels like you're in a cave.

------
INTPenis
#1 Office perk: Not being required to be in the office.

~~~
dboreham
Wouldn't that be #0 ?

------
ishikawa
Natural or not, the most important for me is not to get on my eyes or
reflecting on the screen.

------
maxxxxx
Totally agree. I have been at my current job for 5 years now and I feel that
the lack of light is impacting my mental and physical health. This is the
number one reason I am starting to look for another job.

Any job where I can just have a window looks really good to me now.

------
neonIcon
For the most part I agree with the sentiment of this article. However, I am
currently in my office with sunglasses on because of the abundance of 'natural
light'.. It can definitely be a hindrance at certain times, but overall it is
a perk.

------
martinwww
or CO2 concentration under 1000 ... in our building they somehow trying to
save money on air conditioning so we don't consider air in the office to be
'fresh' as there's usually ~1500ppm - 2000ppm CO2 concentration.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
For others who may be curious, outdoor mean CO2 concentration is currently 410
ppm.

CO2 concentrations under 1000 ppm are described as having 'good air exchange'.
CO2 between 1500-2000 is unpleasant, causes drowsiness and feels stale and
gross. 5000 ppm is the typical workplace health limit.

Some guidelines are based on 1950s air quality, which had 250-350 ppm CO2.
Today, you need more circulation to maintain acceptable CO2 levels than you
did 50 years ago because the outdoor air has a higher concentration.

------
p2t2p
+1. I sit next to a window and enjoy it very much. I used to sit in a middle
of the hall and it was so freaking depressing - no daylight at all, always
lamps that I needed to ask a guy who didn't care to swap with me.

------
tdsamardzhiev
Ugh, no. My eyes ask for a place as dark as possible, so I can use a white-on-
black theme and lower my monitor's brightness all the way down.

The #1 office perk for me is silence. Game sudios are so noisy, holly cow!

------
ourmandave
I also read you can't fake it with a picture of a sunny day or whatever. I
have no windows so I make sure to at least walk past one on the way to the
printer and back.

------
flr03
I you doubt the benefits of natural light, here is a story from a good friend
of mine. Few years back when he was in college, he took an appointment with a
doctor because started to feel depressed with no obvious reason (no family
drama, health issues whatsoever...). Very quickly the doc asked him where he
was spending most of his time, answer: in a classroom with tiny windows,
curtain closed and artificial lights.

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

~~~
PascLeRasc
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.

~~~
nine_k
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.

------
resters
I think this is a testament to how bad flourescent and much LED and Halogen
lighting actually is. This is not a limit of engineering, it's a consequence
of trying to save money on lighting and energy without any consideration for
the ergonomics of the light output. Staring at flicker all day is highly
unpleasant (but so is trying to see a screen when natural sunlight glare is
shining on it).

------
pdpi
At some point I the worst of both worlds — a desk directly underneath a corner
frosted glass skylight/window combination, meaning impossibly bright light in
the early afternoon (making my display quite hard to read), and no effective
nearby artificial lighting when it started getting darker. Took me maybe a
month to find another job after my boss insisted I couldn't move my desk
elsewhere.

------
WhompingWindows
While my room in the office (with 7 cubes in it) does have 4 windows, they are
blocked with strong black metal mesh for security reasons. Also, most of the
desks in the room face away from the window, so none of us are actually
looking towards windows. It's not ideal, but I use breaks and lunch to just
quickly walk around the block and get some perspective on obstacles I'm
facing.

------
syntaxing
I luckily currently work in a place with a good view and natural light (though
the ceiling light is on all the time too). I worked at many places where the
engineers worked next to a clean room so everything was surrounded by closed
off walls. I like to call it the dungeon. It really sucked during the winter
since we do not notice how much snow accumulated until we left.

------
rootbear
This is amusing to me, because when I was at Pixar, many of the shader writers
and lighting TDs _wanted_ an internal office, where they could control exactly
the amount and type of light in their workspace. Many had nearly pitch black
offices, so they could better see subtle differences in changes to their
lighting and shading code.

------
ConceptJunkie
Natural Light is a big thing, but the #1 Office Perk is not working in an open
office. I would trade the open office I work in, which has a ton of windows
and natural light, for a regular office, even just cubicles in a heartbeat.

I love the natural light, but I hate the noise and visual distraction 10 times
more than I love natural light.

------
kisstheblade
Haha, where I live we have no natural light even outside half of the year
(near the arctic circle). And we are most productive during the dark season
because there isn't anything else to do, or any distractions nagging on your
mind (like going to the beach etc) :)

------
silverdrake11
I used to sit in a cubicle next to a window in a high rise. I would always get
sun shining in my eyes and my face would get red sometimes. I usually ended up
with strained eyes and later found out the uvb radiation can cause skin
cancer. So I'm not convinced.

------
kawfey
This wasn't the "natural light" I was expecting. I thought this was going to
be about a office with free cheap beer.

I know of a few workplaces in the US that do feature free alcohol at work, but
many times out of 10 someone gets way too drunk and ruins the fun for
everyone.

------
rconti
I have my first-ever desk by a window. Naturally, other coworkers jockeyed to
also sit near the windows, so they could promptly complain it's too bright and
insist on lowering the shades.

------
crehn
I love natural light, and our office has huge windows and is at the top floor,
but unfortunately many developers prefer working in the dark. It's a bit
depressing sometimes.

------
jay-anderson
I was at a company once where they were out of cubical space. There was an
available office that had windows so they put some people in there and boarded
up the windows.

------
nfriedly
I work remote and I lease a private office. I looked at 3 different options
and ended up choosing the smallest one because it had the most natural light.

------
AnnoyingSwede
Working in a beautiful glass building with very much natural light i still
have to claim our bar/free booze is what gets me to work every day.

------
perseusprime11
Isn’t having a good boss the #1 office perk?

~~~
lghh
That's not a perk, it's a requirement.

------
tempodox
Natural light is overrated. We programmers are olms, sitting in the cellar
with the mushrooms.

------
Tor3
In some civilized countries natural light is actually a requirement, by law.
Not in the server closet etc, but in your office it is. You can, of course,
adjust the curtains or whatever to get the exact amount you prefer (which
typically changes throughout the day, as the sun passes)

~~~
sarabande
Which countries?

~~~
Someone
Certainly the EU. [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A31989L0654):

 _”8. Natural and artificial room lighting

8.1. Workplaces must as far as possible receive sufficient natural light and
be equipped with artificial lighting adequate for the protection of workers'
safety and health.

[…]

10\. Windows and skylights

10.1. It must be possible for workers to open, close, adjust or secure
windows, skylights and ventilators in a safe manner. When open, they must not
be positioned so as to constitute a hazard to workers.”_

Effective since December 31, 1992 (two years later for Greece)

~~~
ensignavenger
"as far as possible"...

I wonder how that is interpreted? Does that exclude buildings older than the
code? Does it prevent new buildings from being constructed without these
features? It would always be "possible" if enough money was spent on it (and
you ignore other considerations, like historical values)...

~~~
pjc50
It essentially means that you have to have a real reason not to have windows,
not just "it was slightly cheaper". So new buildings would get them,
intentionally windowless spaces (darkrooms, freezers) are allowed for a
purpose, and adapted historical buildings are allowed.

------
pleasecalllater
This is so sad.

------
dboreham
#2 : a door.

------
purplezooey
no. The #1 office perk is a real freaking office. Not a worn spot on a table
and an ikea chair.

------
invalidusernam3
For me, it's aircon

~~~
adwww
I hate office aircon. There always seems to be a lag between hot weather
starting and the ac getting ramped up, and the other way around, hot weather
over, AC still on full blast.

I keep 2 different jackets in my office locker to wear at my desk in the
middle of summer, because I don't know how hot or not it will be at my desk.

At least in offices without it, I know to dress appropiately based on the
weather outside.

------
k__
lol, the anti-remote propaganda gets more ridiculous every day.

~~~
Jach
And the health nuts. Or just anti-night propaganda. I love working at night
when it's super dark regardless of windows and the only light is from my
screens.

------
Kiro
I always have all the blinds closed in my apartment and I work from home. I
get very little natural light. Any reason I should force myself to get more?

~~~
coldtea
If you don't care for your health, no. In any case, the ill effects will only
show up after decades of such a habit (and they wouldn't be directly and
easily attributed to it), so no need to be concerned with it now.

~~~
jessaustin
OK I guess I'll stop brushing my teeth too...

~~~
coldtea
That was sarcasm! I thought the "If you don't care for your health, no." part
made it obvious

~~~
jessaustin
I don't _seriously_ suggest that anyone not brush her teeth. However, it's a
fact that many people don't take care of their teeth for decades before
suffering the consequences. If one lost one tooth every three years, one would
probably improve one's oral care. However, with periodontal problems, the
teeth often hang on for a really long time, before all failing at pretty much
the same time.

Since lots of people don't take care of their teeth even though they know they
should, some people will avoid all sunlight.

------
jccalhoun
I thought the article was talking about Natural Light
[https://www.naturallight.com/](https://www.naturallight.com/)

