Lights Out!

In March I will have been working at 3M for five years. That may not sound like a lot of time but considering I made a career change at the age of 47 after a long and illustrious (at least I like to think so) career in Radiology I don’t think it’s too bad.

The reason I bring this up is because of what happened a few days ago. It made me take a step back and think about some of the absurdities of my work environment and have a good laugh with myself. But first some background is needed.
My first day of work a co-worker was assigned to show me around the building. As we approached an area on the west side of the building, second floor I noticed we were headed to an area where all the overhead lights were out. I wondered why we would go there since it looked unoccupied. I soon found out different. My particular work group chooses to work with the overhead lights out. They claim (and I have found it to be true) it causes less eye strain when you spend all day staring at a bright monitor. Oh I know, this is an episode of The Office in the making.
I actually didn’t find this as odd as most people would since I was coming off a stint of ultrasound where I was used to being in a dark room all day staring at a monitor. Now if pregnant women were running around showing their bellies, well that would be another matter. So the other day I was eating some grapes and happened to drop one and it rolled under my desk. Now here’s what I found funny. I had to get my flashlight (an essential item when you work in the dark) out to find it. So I started thinking how funny it is that I have a flashlight at work and then I started thinking “I could send out an email saying I was at a meeting, crawl under my desk and take a nap and no one would be the wiser.” They would never see me under there. In fact I could have someone living under there right now and not even know it. Of course it’s not completely dark because there are windows. But until it gets light outside or if you don’t sit by a window you keep the flashlight handy. I don’t sit by a window.
One thing I did find a little unnerving was the total quiet. I’m talking tomb quiet. I was afraid to sneeze out loud so I would usually hold it in and end up imploding. And if I happened to have a full bladder at the time….well we won’t go there. If I wanted to open a can of soda I did it in intervals so as not to disturb others. I’m not doing a Paul Dunn here (Deena likes to accuse me of that). This is true stuff. I found out one reason it was so quiet is because everyone has on earphones and listening to music or talk radio. I thought this was pretty cool and I soon joined in on that. Well I did get used to the quiet and I now sneeze and open soda with ease. In fact now I like the quiet so much it bugs me when people hang around the copier (which is by my cubicle) and talk. I know, I know, it’s always something.