Autism

Ooooh story time…

I worked for a small company in 2017/2018 that had recently expanded its building and added offices into their second floor, which had previously been a storage area. The second floor offices didn’t have any windows, but is also the spot that they decided IT would go.

One day I came in and the fluorescent lights didn’t turn on. There happened to be some random old lamp (I think from the 60’s or 70’s) in a storage closet so I grabbed it and put it on the intersection of 4 cubicles to light the area. There were only 6 IT people that worked in the area and as people were coming into work, no one mentioned the light. We all just did our work.

Halfway though the day, one of our senior devs asked “hey, so what’s with the light?”

I let him know the overhead lights didn’t come on when I got here this morning so I just grabbed a lamp.

5 of us discussing the lighting situation all vocally said “yea, this is much better, the fluorescent lights suck.” One person was quiet.

The overhead lights were “fixed” not too long after but people started opting for turning them off in favor of the lamp. This upset 1 of the 6 IT people working in the area.

It eventually became an HR issue, and the one person won; to the detriment of the other 5.

I ended up quitting about 2 weeks after that, not from the light issue; but I let them believe it was a large contributing factor in the exit interview.

you don’t need to be neurodivergent to appreciate the dark….
for example, you could be one of those mole people with no pigment (i.e. northern white peoples)….

Hum... Yeah... That'd be me. The creature of the night. Not rave n' disco night... More like, night night. Even during the day.

@mom @dad

I find myself wearing my sunnies indoors more often than not. On days I forget and grab my regular glasses, switching over to the tinted lenses is literal full body relief as the light input is reduced.

bolderdash

Coworkers like 75% spectrum. Office is DARK

When we have meetings, boss comes in and opens the blinds. We scurry around like roaches

Can you imagine if we just started making snarky comments and turning off lights that people purposely put on? Wow, that'd be so rude! Right? Right??

Doesn't matter if they're neurodivergent at all, it's rude to flashbang anyone like that

90% of the time, the explanation is "I was doing a thing that didnt require external light source and didnt notice the sun went down."

Also, we sometimes like the dark.

Would you like it if you were in a room with a comfortable lighting level and changed the lighting level to suit ourselves without saying anything first?

“Why don’t you ever come out of your room?” flashbacks, lol

"I rule from the shadows" is my usual response.

I like to sit in my desolate room. No lights. No music. Just anger.