Why is she working in the dark?

She might have a light sensitivity - my daughter does.

Some folks turn out the lights when they work on the computer. Yes, these people are strange.

Maybe she just prefers dim lighting. It's more relaxing.

maybe she gets headaches.

I like good lighting when I'm reading, but just where the reading material is. My husband and I play the battle of the light switches quite a bit. He like all lights on.

I think this about people who always have to have some kind of music playing, whether they are working or not.

It's like they're afraid of the quiet.

Are your main lights fluorescent? Any outside windows?

I cannot stand fluorescent light and worked in similar conditions when I was in a windowless, fluorescent-lit office. A small lamp with incandescent light was way more tolerable for me (though when I moved to an office with floor-to-ceiling windows, that was much better yet).

yeppers, me too.

So she is afraid of the light?

Nope no outside windows or light - her office is no where near the natural light. I work in a former warehouse turned office building - it is huge in there and most offices have no natural light.

It really is a horrible environment in that respect. I cannot see a window to the outside even when I stand up.

Me too - I prefer natural light and if that's not available low lamplight. I suffer and I mean SUFFER flourescent lighting when I absolutely have to - as in when other people are present. As soon as they leave - I turn the switch to 'off'.

I think it's from when I was growing up and my dad indoctrinated me into saving electricity. If it's not absolutely necessary, I'm more comfortable physically and emotionally with it off.

same with music= much as I love it - I can't work with it. I think if I were in school today they would call me ADD - and maybe even ADHD - highly distractible and constantly on the move.

thank god that's what my jobs have always allowed me to be - so I always looked like a good, hard worker who likes to save resources-instead of a weird, distracted fussbudget (or however you spell that).

I never turn overhead lights on in my house - NEVER.

Well it could also be part of our new cost cutting - maybe the offices are only allowed one source of light. Either their brighter overhead light or a desk lamp, but not both.

Yeah that sounds about right.

We have people who do the same thing. I don't understand why they like to sit in the dark, but they absolutely abhor turning on the light.

About four people; they've all migrated to offices next to each other so that they're on the same light switch.

Why do they sit in the dark? "I just like it better this way."

Wally calls me "mole woman" sometimes.

I almost entitled this question as mole woman. Do you work here?

lean out into the hallway and look.

I'm standing about 50 feet away, enjoying a gum break.

For me, a graphic designer, the dimmer the room the better for monitor viewing. Although several people questioned it, everyone seemed to get it. People would come in and just hang out. I'd have music playing and it was known as 'The Lounge'.

Maybe she's really just working "in the dark". I've had some of those mushroom jobs, myself.

For some kinds of detail, like working to scribed lines, dim light from a single point (not florescent) is best. You can't really see the lines very well, but the right light source makes their shadows show up.

I prefer to have lots of light, just as some others have mentioned, but i just can't do most fluorescent lighting. The belly dance studio which The Girl attends has these little get-togethers from time to time, and although i enjoy them, the lighting (fluorescent) bothers me so much that i sometimes leave before they are finished--by the end of the evening (only about two hours) my eyes are watering copiously, and i have a headache.

Sorry I was in a meeting - I couldn't peek. I bet you left early too.

I like enough light.. my dark adaptation tests extremely slow, and being able to see the area I'm in 'enhances my well being'. On the other hand, I don't have to have an office or home lit to blazes generally.

In the studio, we had rather fetching yardlights with incandescent floods along the two long side walls at 10 foot height every x amount of feet in both the big gallery and studio, and, by our drafting tables, excellent drafting table lights. We had a couple of smaller rooms for the gallery and computer office, one with rather homey table lights and the other with a simple wall fixture. Just before I was leaving, a person donated the fixtures and installation for a set of canister lights in along the midline of the main gallery ceiling, which approaches 15 feet high. I talked with lightwizard early on about proper gallery lighting (he's the man) but we never could afford that.

At home, I've been switching gradually, after years of bitching, to the swirly fluorescent bulbs labelled "soft white". They don't bother me like the long tube fluorescents did, given they're of relatively warm color. I keep a couple of lights on all night, so I can find my way around (those wall plug in things are a joke to my eyes). On just one nearby light in a room.. that's how I am comfortable reading at night. In the computer room, I like at least one other light on.

On lighting in general, many of you probably know there are big changes afoot in exterior lighting design, re keeping a place lit enough for safety but diminishing the tremendous amount of light between our cities and our night skies.

signed,
no-mole-in-a-strange-land