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'Roofing' Your Cubicle?
Alex Bischoff asks: "At work, I'm forced to suffer in my cubicle with overhead fluorescent lighting. So, I've given some thought to building a "roof" to block out that light, at which point I could use my own incandescent lighting to light the area (or perhaps an Eclipse Computer Light). Anyhow, at first I was going to just drape a sheet across the top of the cubible walls, and weigh them down somehow. But, after some thought, I'm thinking that might be too low, as the cubicle walls are only about five feet high (so would "stilts" for the sheet work?). So, has anyone built a 'cubicle roof' before? Any ideas on how to go about this?" Maybe a 'cubicle tent' would be more appropriate here? Especially for those cubicle warriors who are unusually tall.
Just do like Jamie Zawinsky (guy that worked on the first netscape) did: go to your local army surplus store and buy an acre of camouflage netting to hang over you cubicle...
What I would probably do is this: You can get some garden tents (some people call them Tennesee tents, but that's probably not the technical term.) that consist of a roof (pointy in a pyramid fashion.) and four legs, about 7' high or so. The sides are open. They're probably 10' x 10' or so, and they're white, so some light would get through. A little sawing, and maybe that woud be your solution, provided that you cubicle fits the measurements.
-Bo
Try grabbing one of those patio umbrellas. Nice, variety of colors, comes apart quickly for moving/cleaning day/management objections. It's also less permanent and less imposing than most other solutions. The key here is getting buy-in from your boss.
You might also try finding an optometrist who understands that, while most people don't see the 60Hz flicker, some of us do. (Somewhere around 75Hz is where I stop seeing flicker from monitors.) Lie that you're getting headaches from the overhead flicker, and produce the note from your doctor.
The real issue here is putting non-dimmable ballasts with cool-white bulbs into an office environment. (The architect should have known better, but most American architecture tends to be wrong about most things.) If you could dim, or turn off your overhead fixtures, the company would save money on replacing bulbs, electricity, your increased morale, and your increased output.