Trusting Ourselves

They re-did the lights in our office recently. The idea was to install high-efficiency lighting to help avoid energy costs. Ironically, we'd been doing that all along by having bulbs removed (a lot of nice natural light most days anyway) and using task lighting when necessary. Y'know, just being smart about things.

Well the new lights went in. And when I walked into the office the first day, it was blinding. Absolutely radiant--like looking into the "1,000 Suns" that Linkin Park talks about in their last album. People were donning visors and, at one point, I actually put sunglasses on to work at my desk. (Sadly, it didn't work with the computer... and I was stuck working in the glare most of the day.) After complaining a bit, I put up with it and went home with a light-induced migraine.

The next day an engineer showed-up. His job was to assess the situation and make recommendations to the contractor. He marched into a neighboring cubicle and, placing his little light meter on the top of the desk, declared proudly: "The light levels are well within the limits for a normal office."

We were a bit stunned. "What does that mean?" the neighbor asked. It's still too bright.

"Well," the engineer quickly replied,"That is your opinion. My equipment measures light levels and it is showing me that yours are just fine. It must be the light from the windows that makes it appear to be too bright."

With that, he marched into my office to repeat himself. This time, however, he added a comment about the sun providing radiant heat at this end of the building and that the combination of the two must make us feel as if it is brighter.

I'd heard enough. So I said, "The relative brightness of my office is a decision only I can make. If you could do nothing about it, I would say, 'OK' and try to live with it. But since you have options to reduce the light, I'd suggest you do it."

He hesitated for a moment and the blurted out, "But--"

At which point I cut him off. "Have you ever hung a picture on your wall?" I asked.

"Huh?" He looked at me as if I had two heads.

I continued, "When you hang a picture on your wall, you can use a level. But sometimes just using a level isn't enough and the picture can still look crooked. So what do you do? You take a moment, stand back and look carefully at it, making adjustments until it looks just right. That's what you're doing here. Your technology gets you so far, then you have to rely on your eyes (or the eyes of your customers here in the office) to give you feedback.”

He continued the blank stare and walked out. Fortunately, the project manager coaxed him into resolving the issue by permanently dimming the lights. But I found it amusing how tied the engineer was to his technology and how defiantly he defended the numbers on the pile of documents he was carrying around, rather than just putting all of that down and relying on his own senses.

I think we do that far too often in life, too. We look to media, books, authority figures, religious dogma, etc., all for some sort of guidance—even sometimes blindly following their advice into failure—rather than stopping to watch and listen for ourselves.