The No. 1 Office Perk? Natural Light, According To Hundreds of Employees (hbr.org)

An anonymous reader shares a report: The news headlines about what perks or elements of office design make for a great employee experience seem to be dominated by fads -- think treadmill desks, nap pods, and "bring your dog to work day" for starters. However, a new survey by my HR advisory firm Future Workplace called "The Employee Experience" reveals the reality is that employees crave something far more fundamental and essential to human needs. In a research poll of 1,614 North American employees, we found that access to natural light and views of the outdoors are the number one attribute of the workplace environment, outranking stalwarts like onsite cafeterias, fitness centers, and premium perks including on-site childcare (only 4-8% of FORTUNE 100 companies offer on-site child care). The study also found that the absence of natural light and outdoor views hurts the employee experience. Over a third of employees feel that they don't get enough natural light in their workspace. 47% of employees admit they feel tired or very tired from the absence of natural light or a window at their office, and 43% report feeling gloomy because of the lack of light.

Comments

Nope

[Anonymous Coward]

The #1 office perk is getting a paycheck. Health insurance is a close second. Bathrooms will be up there above natural light as well.

Re:Nope

[vux984]

Paycheck isn't a perk its contractual. Health care, likewise is often considered to be part of the compensation package.

Bathrooms in the first world can generally be assumed to be mandated by law/building codes/ required for business licenses to be granted etc, and are ubiquitous enough that they can be assumed if you work in a building. If you don't work inside though, then bathrooms are often a challenge.

A *nice* bathroom might well be a valuable perk though.

FWIW, I agree with the article, my own home office windows overlook a greenspace -- to be able to just look out at trees gently waving in the breeze is something i truly value. It's a big part of why i chose the place.

Re:Nope

[CohibaVancouver]

I live in Canada, Anonymous Coward. I have healthcare regardless of my job. Even if I don't have a job.

Re:Nope

[ShanghaiBill]

to be able to just look out at trees gently waving in the breeze is something i truly value.

Can't you get the same experience by running some nature scenes on a 39" monitor?

Re:Nope

[Darinbob]

My cube is next to a window. It's by a parking lot, but sitting down all I see green tree leaves and blue sky and no cars or asphalt. This is more than I see at home to be honest. Also the lighting is a soft LED that is much nicer than flourescents. It was a big boost to mood going from a cubicle near the center of an aging building with crappy carpets to a refurbished building with sunlight.

Re:Nope

[hey!]

You don't know what a perq is.

Your employer isn't doing anything special for you by paying you. It's not a perq.

But then a healthy workspace isn't a perq either. Have we really got that twisted in our thinking? Do we really believe an employer is doing the employee some kind of *favor* by paying him?

Frankly, that attitude is just plain dumb ... on the part of the employers. Sure you're not in business to make your employees like you, but your not in business making your employees miserable either. When I ran a development team I used to make people go home when I thought they'd been working too long, because their sacrifice meant nothing to me.

Re:Nope

[Pseudonym]

That's not what "perk" (strictly speaking "perq", short for "perquisite") means.

Re:Nope

[Opportunist]

Where I live, job perks start way above this. The four things you mention are mandatory. Just try to deprive your workers of paycheck, insurance, bathrooms or natural light and you will see your office shut down.

Re:Nope

[mark-t]

Getting paid isn't a "perk"... it's a legal requirement.

Re:Nope

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The #1 office perk is getting a paycheck. Health insurance is a close second. Bathrooms will be up there above natural light as well.

Norm MacDonald: "This week in a new study, HR advisory firm Future Workplace announced the second most popular workplace perk was health insurance. The most popular? Whores!" (Stares at audience in silence.)

How long until his new show is on?

Re: Nope

[cs668]

In an open office setting I often have to go to four floors to find a shitter. Then I have to stand on the seat because I don't want my ass touching it! I hate the open office!

Re:Nope

[bondsbw]

Head/eye tracking and scenery distances over 50 feet would probably substitute acceptable depth perception cues. Just don't get too close to the screen, and don't use a scene with direct sunlight.

I'm curious if anyone has produced such a set up. I wouldn't be surprised.

Re: Nope

[houghi]

Salary is not a perk. Well, unless you are American and talk about getting paid for overtime.

Re:Nope

[stasike]

A bathroom is a fucking luxury. I mean, who has time to take a bath at work?

When you have to visit factory floor from tine to time, or go on-site to inspect or supervise something, a shower might be highly welcome when you want to change from your dirty work clothes.

Re:Nope

[war4peace]

I work late shift. During winter, when I start work it's dark already.
As far as I'm concerned, fuck natural light. My number one office perk is a quiet environment.

Re:Nope

[Cederic]

Or did you mean toilets? In which case they aren't a perk, they are a necessity.

No, merely a more sanitary option. Many people work in offices and lack adequate control to reach them anyway.

Re:Nope

[mikael]

People who use a bicycle in to get to work. We had a few employees who took a bicycle ride through the main streets in morning rush hour. By the time they had arrived, the diesel soot and oil from trucks and buses on their facemask made them look like a World War I pilot. They had to take a shower to clean up.

On one contract I had, the only available desk space was a computer room in the centre of the building. There were no windows. In Winter, I wouldn't see sunlight in the morning when going to work, or going home at night. The only time was during the weekends.

Re: Nope

[mikael]

I could guess the building you are in ... One office was built from a converted bank. They actually had a vault on one level. The toilet cubicles (a total of four for 100 people on each floor) were extremely narrow. I had to walk in sideways. But those were always occupied at lunchtime, so I had to go down four floors to disabled access bathroom in the basement.

Re:Nope

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And didn't the Japanese solve the natural light problem over 25 years ago with the Sunflower Fiber Optic system?

Re: Nope

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A toilet you WANT to be in, is counterproductive.

Re:Nope

[hipp5]

A *nice* bathroom might well be a valuable perk though.

Funny enough, one of the things I REALLY appreciate my office is that they buy real toilet paper, and not that 1-ply sandpaper that is so commonly used in commercial washrooms. It's such a small thing but makes a big difference in how I view my workplace.

Re:Nope

[mjwx]

Paycheck isn't a perk its contractual. Health care, likewise is often considered to be part of the compensation package.

For most of the world, health care isn't provided by our employers. We'd hate for our employers to have almost quite literally, the power of life and death over us.

However, I live in the UK. There is little natural light at the best of times so I'd windows are pretty far down on the list compared to flexible hours and climate control.

Re:Nope

[butchersong]

Can't you get the same experience by running some nature scenes on a 39" monitor?

No. You get some benefit that is measurable but not as significant. They've done studies that simply having x amount of trees in your neighborhood (controlling for wealth etc.) lowers cancer very risk significantly. Here's one study with a bunch of interesting references summary: When one ponders humans existing less than 0.01% of the species’ history in modern surroundings and the other 99.99% of the time living in nature, it is no wonder some humans yearn and are drawn back to where human physiological/psychological functions began and were naturally supported. The Biophilia Hypothesis [8] supports SY and NT because it is steeped in the idea humans have an inner biological attraction to nature and its importance in our human development...

Re:Nope

[Kielistic]

Also you couldn't stand beside anyone.

Re:Nope

[vux984]

"Head/eye tracking and scenery distances over 50 feet would probably substitute acceptable depth perception cues."

Maybe as long as nobody else is ever in the same room. :p

I'm sure its been done too... as an art exhibit or some overwrought corporate display of wealth somewhere. But is it really practical or effective? I doubt it... the trees outside my window are really right there. I can go outside and look at them. They aren't fictional, nor a long dead recording of something that used to be, nor even images piped in live from somewhere else far removed. They are really and truly there.

I think mentally / psychologically that means something -- there is an inherent truth to the view from a window. And a sense of place, "i am here, and the trees are here."

A projected image, even if perfect would still be fake.

Re:Nope

[vux984]

Yeah, when I wrote that quip, it was just a disclaimer to my argument, but i reflected on it afterwards and it's true. Nice bathrooms really are a valuable perk, clean, the toilet paper you mentioned, even the location.

I was at a small retail store the other day, and the bathroom was right off the main showroom with a thin 'closet door'; and all but the slightest sound made inside would be heard by everyone in the showroom. Some homes are like that too... just bad floor plans.

Re:Nope

[luis_a_espinal]

I worked at a place that had legitimate bathrooms with tubs/showers. That boss was pervee creepy asshole though. So it's not that surprising.

I've worked at engineering places with legit bathrooms with tubs/showers and even built-in gyms. It's one of the great perks of working with a large firm (so long it stays blue chip.)

I haven't perceived a creepy peeping tom boss, though.

Re:Nope

[luis_a_espinal]

A bathroom is a fucking luxury. I mean, who has time to take a bath at work?

Your work experience is rather limited. If you work at a place with a bathroom, you can take a job at lunch, then a quick shower to recharge your energy, or simply a cold shower before taking a long commute back home. Some places have them, and it is a blessing.

Hell, some places have built-in gyms and daycare facilities. Those are the places you want to work.

Or did you mean toilets? In which case they aren't a perk, they are a necessity.

Indeed, it is limited (in this second case, you are lucky, for there are some fubar places where toilets are barely functioning.)

Light is important, yes...

[thegreatbob]

As is the ability to reduce the eye-searing blaze of overabundant fluorescent and LED fixtures that typically exceed the minimum legal requirements by a huge margin. When the average background field of the ceiling and walls is as bright as, or brighter than your monitor, it is very bothersome. This is obviously in the context of a circumstance where one's primary duties are on computers.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[PolygamousRanchKid]

As is the ability to reduce the eye-searing blaze of overabundant fluorescent and LED fixtures that typically exceed the minimum legal requirements by a huge margin.

The No. 1 Office Perk?

A Home Office.

It has the best lighting inside because you set it that way.

Or if the weather is nice, sit outside.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[Darinbob]

Naw, my cubicle is nicer than my home office. The cubicle has air conditioning and someone who vacuums every now and then.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[antdude]

Ditto. Being comfortable, having privacy, flexibilities, no commutes, etc. I loved it when I worked from home as a contractor for Cisco.

Re: Light is important, yes...

[houghi]

That would be the worst for me. I like to keep my work and my homelife seperately as much as possible.
That is ine reason I use an alias, so there can never be any confusion if I talk as me or as somebody from the company.
Homeoffice? No thanks. My private life is too importsnt to mix it up with work.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[grahamtriggs]

Having a view really depends on how important distractions and refocusing are - sometimes it is really useful to be able to look away from your work; to think and reflect on it for a while.

Light - well, quality of light certainly matters. Making sure you light that is either neither too dull nor too bright, not having problematic reflections, glare, light sources in eyesight, etc.

Whether it is natural or artificial light is far less relevant to me. I don't hate natural light, but I find that it creates more problems - different levels of brightness during the day, different positions of the sun, etc. And how you control the natural environment - shutting or opening blinds, etc. - often leads to tensions amongst workers as people are affected differently given where they are located in the office.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[thegarbz]

The No. 1 Office Perk?
A Home Office.

Personally I prefer interacting with people. Home Office is a punishment, not a perk.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[KiloByte]

Natural lighting is far brighter than that. It makes it hard to read the screen.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[Jason Levine]

I've noticed that I've been getting headaches every day when I'm at work. When I'm at home (during the weekend or days off), I don't get these headaches. Now, it could be that I'm looking at monitors for 8 hours straight. (I try to rest my eyes and focus on other things, but in a cubicle environment there's not much "far away" to focus on.) It could also be the fluorescent lighting overhead. Either way, it's getting tiresome to feel my eyes begin to throb at noon and have a bad headache by 4pm.

Natural light - and a spot where I could focus my eyes on something farther away than the wall behind my monitor - would be a great perk.

Re:Light is important, yes...

[cyberchondriac]

They just replaced the fluorescent bulbs in my office building (with LED bulbs) but, prior to this we had several bulbs out, unscrewed, or missing so as not to be blinding; they have them all running now. It's a harsh and ugly environment, full of glare. They keep saying once they're all in on every floor, (and controlled by a centralized system), they can turn some off but it's been months now so I'm starting to question that, I think they've been done for weeks. We all hate it. Our monitors create their own light, the need for copious overhead lighting became obsolete when people stopped doing everything with paper and filing cabinets decades ago.

disagree

[bananaquackmoo]

As a programmer and designer: Noooope! Light and reflections create monitor glare which in turn create headaches, color/contrast inaccuracies, and more trouble. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy daylight... when I'm outdoors or in a rest area. When I'm working, I'm working. Outdoors & daylight are distractions at that point.

Re:disagree

[Junta]

It's a matter of the ability to manage the light appropriately, and matching good quality display.

All other things being equal, I find an environment with copious amounts of natural light on average is less glare than places relying upon many light fixtures to try to get the same level of light. The light source is much more diffuse from large windows than fixtures.

However, if the sun is directly hitting me directly or my monitor without adequate or poorly implemented shade, that's terrible.

If you have a monitor with terrible brightness, then nothing beyond a dark cave is usable, but that's pretty miserable.

Re:disagree

[Dutch Gun]

Completely agree. Many game development environments I've worked in have been darkened, with windows mostly covered and overhead lights mostly off. Both programmers and artists alike seem to prefer a dim environment, where they can view their monitors all day without headache-inducing glare. It's especially important for artists to be able to see color and contrast properly, so their areas tend to be the darkest, in my recollection.

It would be nice to not have to work in a cave, but it's more practical, at least for me. I keep my home office somewhat dimly lit, with shades drawn and a single 30 watt bulb (equivalent) in a shaded lamp for illumination.

Re: disagree

[that this is not und]

The guys with the calibrated monitors at the gaming studio aren't the ones that get to have the most fun.

Re:disagree

[aaarrrgggh]

You are unfortunately comparing bad lighting (and light) to good lighting and office orientation. My work is primarily either on my monitor or whiteboard behind my desk. I have about 5fc on my desk compared to a modern recommendation of 20-30fc, but I have fill-in lights to light up the wall in front of my desk to about 5% of the exitance from the monitor, along with a separate light that provides full-in on overcast days.

When an office is designed well, you have significantly less eye strain than a dark office. Natural light adds to it.

Unfortunately, designing good functional lighting for office spaces is a long lost art.

Re:disagree

[AmiMoJo]

A well designed building prevents glare and harsh reflections. If the building isn't well designed then the windows can be covered with paper to diffuse the light, or you can use high CRI daylight bulbs to replicate sunlight. For reduction of eye strain and headaches high CRI is great.

Re:disagree

[hackertourist]

Reflections/glare are annoying and create trouble. Lack of light (to the point where your monitor is the brightest light source in the room) is also problematic and can generate headaches, fatigue etc. And the other way round (having your desk face the window, so your background is much brighter than the monitor) isn't nice either.
The best solution is even illumination levels, and everything set up to eradicate glare.

Health insurance is an USA only thing with jobs!

[Joe_Dragon]

Health insurance is an USA only thing with jobs!

Neat

[Anonymous Coward]

For me silence is a perk.
They say "open collaborative concept workspace", I say cheapskate.

I disagree with your disagreement

[SuperKendall]

As a programmer and designer: Noooope! Light and reflections create monitor glare

As a programmer and photographer, I very much agree that natural light is valuable. Office lights cause glare too, so with any lighting source it's more about placement of the monitor - I sit right by big windows in my home office and have no glare because I Sith with a neutral wall behind me, windows to one side, all artificial lighting behind the monitor.

I hadn't really thought about it before but I totally agree that natural light is a highly valuable resource to me. Outdoors is not a distraction, it gives me energy I need to work effectively.

Re:I disagree with your disagreement

[cyberchondriac]

It's a "dog whistle". Emperor Trump is planning to execute Order 66 soon. ;)

Good lord I sound like Slate, someone shoot me.

Re:I disagree with your disagreement

[SuperKendall]

That is one hell of an autocorrect. :-)

Radiologist here

[Anonymous Coward]

That's pretty much the complete opposite of my work environment :(

I can definitely vouch for this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had offices in:
1) A windowless room, but two doors away from standing at the coast. This was crappy even though the seawall was great to walk during breaks.
2) A full wall window on the 9th floor of a tower with a clear line of sight to the horizon. Rarely went outside the building, but I miss this every day. So do my plants.
3) A half wall window on the ground floor looking at the forest. This was somewhere in between - the light was nice, the view was OK, but I did go walk in the woods quite a bit.
4) A windowless room with some forest outside. This is kind of crappy, I don't like florescent lights.

By far the offices with more natural light were much better workspaces, and I would willingly (sometimes unthinkingly) spend much more time at work and being productive from them.

Re:I can definitely vouch for this.

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Yeah, I used to teach in corporate buildings so rooms were allocated according to what was free at the time. My heart would sink every time that turned out to be a windowless conference room.

I prefer not having a window

[Kalendraf]

I've had a window office. I've also had a cube adjacent to a windowed wall where turning my head left let me look right outside. I've worked in labs with windows. However, I found I was always more productive in offices or rooms without windows. Invariably, I find having a window ends up being more of a distraction than a benefit.

What I prefer instead is being able to leave the site during lunch. That gives me plenty of time to get out, enjoy some fresh air and clear my head midway through the day. As a result, I rank flexible work hours and being able to pick when I arrive, and when I leave as a much higher than having a window. Vacations, sick days, personal days and so forth also rank much higher than having a window. And of course, getting paid and getting insurance tops all of those.

Re:I prefer not having a window

[Tough Love]

I found I was always more productive in offices or rooms without windows

Yah, that's where you don't get it. Having a room with windows means you no longer need to do actual work.

Re:I prefer not having a window

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never had an office that could see outside... ever in my 27+ years in the IT industry. I'd take the choice of looking outside vs at a blank wall any day. I take the long walk to the cafeteria almost every day just so I can see outside for a short stint and feel a minuscule re-connection with nature.

I'm pretty sure the scene from the movie "Office Space" where Peter unscrews the cube wall pretty much sums up many of us...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNai8OYhdxA

Re:I prefer not having a window

[Junta]

It depends on what is outside that window. At my workplace, the majority of what is out the window is forest viewed from above. It's pleasant, but also not interesting enough to be actively distracting.

If it were a cityscape, that could be a bit more to pull your attention.

The side effects are actually quite good

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who spent close to a decade in a cube city before I finally landed an office with a window, I noticed a few things after a couple months:

1. I actually looked forward to coming into the office on any given day.

2. It was distracting at first, but sometimes a needed distraction that would pull my active attention away from the problem at hand and allowed my subconscious and opportunity to fill that hole with a Eureka! moment that not only solved my problem, but a few others as well.

3. I found fewer reasons to sky off by browsing web pages or making busy work by cleaning out old email, etc.

4. I've been sick a whole lot less frequently, though I'm going to bet this was because I wasn't working in the middle of a petri dish where folks brought in every single germ their kid or spouse had.

status symbol

[starless]

At the government lab where I work natural light is a status symbol.

The civil servants above a certain rank all get their own offices with windows, whereas "contractors",
of no matter what status and how many years of working at the lab., have shared windowless offices.

(Me, bitter? Maybe only slightly...)

Wow, that's so pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

Every day I envy the desk jockeys a little less. My job is hard physical work, but jeebus christ, at least I'm not so miserable that sunlight is considered a treat. LOL

Well here is my list

[redback]

1. Light that doesn't cause monitor glare. Don't care about the source.
2. Reasonable volume level. No music.
3. Suitable heating/cooling

Not just a perk, it's the law

[ruddk]

Now I know that I live in a socialist hell hole worse than Venezuela (According to Fox News). But it is actually the law that you can't build a office where people sit in more than two rows from a window.
https://arbejdstilsynet.dk/da/...

Google translated version: https://translate.google.com/t...

Re:Not just a perk, it's the law

[Mascot]

Same here, natural light and the ability to look outside are legal requirements. Ironically, I had blinds put in at work because I can't handle daylight without sunglasses.

Re:Not just a perk, it's the law

[Darinbob]

I travelled for some time to Finland for work, and almost all the office buildings there was chock full of large windows so as to soak in as much sunlight as possible during the limited daylight in winter. Also most had awnings over the windows as well to guard against the never ending sunlight in summer...

I did like the building layout where all the offices were on the outside walls and the lab space was in the center. There was also a lot more habit of taking the laptop to the lab space to do serious work rather than sitting in the office all day.

Re:Not just a perk, it's the law

[DNS-and-BIND]

Bernie Sanders said Denmark was socialist. You telling us he's a liar?

Re:Not just a perk, it's the law

[ruddk]

I haven’t been following US politics in detail but I heard that the went a bit further than what’s actually going on in Denmark. :)

But there are a lot of differences in culture as well, good and bad that can’t just be changed by politics.

For example, I sense that unions here have quite a bit different reputation and history than in US.

Natural light? Nope.

[DarkVader]

Seriously, I don't give a f*ck about that.

An office with a door is FAR more important. I'm perfectly happy with no sunlight as long as I can close off everybody else when I'm trying to concentrate on something.

And no glass door or glass wall either. A solid door, with no windows in it or in the interior walls. I'm fine with a window to the outside, as long as it has curtains I can close if I want the glare to go away. And a lock on the door is an essential. Don't knock, don't call, just go away if my door is closed.

If I had to be in an open plan office all day I'd go insane.

(I'm so glad I work from home most of the time.)

True No. 1 Perk

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

is a cube with decently high walls, or better yet an office. Who gives a damn about natural light in a open-plan sh*thole?

Ahhh....

[bferrell]

A corner office

No 1 should be

[Trogre]

No 1 should be an actual office.

Not some bullshit open-plan or cubicle hell dreamed up by a $500/hr consultant to foster collaboration and synergy of your brand.

Re:No 1 should be

[Trogre]

Forgive them, for they know not what they say.

An office. A small room with a door. Not a cubicle where your every conversation is broadcast to the rest of the room.

You've never seen one, have you?

Re:No 1 should be

[gbell]

Something I learned from the basecamp people: Private offices are a big of a logistic problem when your headcount varies, you want to rearrange things, etc.

Here's what they did. IMHO, second only to my own home office on the appeal scale.

https://basecamp.com/about/off...

The heck with that

[Kargan]

Having just moved my desk in the office to somewhere *away* from the front windows, I don't want any more natural light!

Sitting up in the front of the building, you catch a real nice glare in the morning from the sun hitting all of the glass and chrome out in the parking lot and then again in the afternoon. That sunlight is like a laser beam, and it tended to come right through the holes in the blinds even when closed.

No thanks! My current corner of the office is much darker now and I am much happier for it.

Re:Natural light? Nope.

[Darinbob]

I had my own large office with a door and a large window once, but this was also my worst tech job and one where I was paid the least. They just had an excess of offices with windows and they didn't have cubicles except for visiting sales people. My next job was my first time in a cubicle, and I was much happier there.

Fresh air

[Trogre]

I suspect fresh air is more conducive to a happy healthy work environment than natural light.

Rickets and Crickets

[Tablizer]

I once worked in "the basement", and lack of natural light was indeed a common complaint among colleagues. (Cockroaches were another problem there.)

They joked about getting rickets from lack of outdoor light. Even seeing a sliver of sky seems to calm people.

Companies may be able to pay lower salaries if they focus on personal perks. For example, instead of a raise, they could optionally give you menu of things like:

* Better chair
* Bigger cubicle
* Better monitor(s)
* Cafeteria discounts
* Foosball table
* Nerf gun targets
* Better parking spot
* Bus/tram discounts
* Being closer to windows (or further from Windows)
* Better dev stack/language
* Permission to troll Slashdot
* Not getting yelled at when you screw up
* More attractive colleagues (yes, men are horny, deal)

Once I was given a window office. It was really nice, but created mass jealously, being I wasn't a manager. It wasn't worth the complicated office politics it created. Some people are really petty.

Re:Rickets and Crickets

[Jason Levine]

Unfortunately, the average company would probably structure it as follows:

You're giving a tiny desk with a highly uncomfortable chair in a tiny cubicle with hard fluorescent lighting. How do you want to spend your "raise"?

Slightly less uncomfortable chair
Slightly larger cubicle
Slightly bigger desk
Slightly better lighting system

Each only gives you an incremental upgrade so you only get the extra comfy chair, big desk, private office, and natural lighting after 40 years of working for the company.

Re:Rickets and Crickets

[DontBeAMoran]

Being closer to windows (or further from Windows)

I see what you did there.

More attractive colleagues (yes, men are horny, deal)

Giggidy.

Re:Rickets and Crickets

[Not-a-Neg]

If a company gives an employee more than $500 ($600 for US?) in "gifts" in a year it has to be reported on taxes. A designated parking spot counts as a gift and the company would need to calculate the value of it. That's one of the reasons so many people get in tax trouble for things like free tickets to an event. It's also why employment anniversary gifts are typically cheap crap (although, I really do like the alarm clock I got for my 5 year reward, it's a Sony Dream Station.)

Re:Rickets and Crickets

[Tablizer]

giving up pay for attractive colleagues...Distraction is a powerful thing.

Oh yes, but also quite wonderful.

Denmark Offices ...

[kbahey]

Back in the mid 90s, I spend a month on business visit to Copenhagen.

All the offices had natural light. The building was a central corridor, with offices on the left and on the right of it, and all with big windows.

When I asked about that design, I was told that there is a law where no person should be farther than X meters away from a window, because their winter is long, and the days are short.

A far cry from the cubicle farms in the USA and Canada ...

Re: Health insurance is an USA only thing with jo

[datavirtue]

Yeah and that situation has to go.

I want a fucking door

[Snotnose]

Give me an office with a door I can close, all by myself. Windows are nice, but a fucking door is a requirement.

Silly question. You pay me $170k/year + bennies. Why would you put me in a cube farm (open office? I'm gone) where you save $10k, and I lose half my productivity?

I'm guessing my lack of an MBA is showing here.

Re:I want a fucking door

[aaarrrgggh]

Not to sound like an MBA, but the average target spend for office space is about 5% of salaries.

Personally not sure what I think of it, but a number of companies are going to 6’x8’ private offices with the “barn doors” to try to balance needs. There are options...

Re:I want a fucking door

[Actually, I do RTFA]

You pay me $170k/year + bennies. Why would you put me in a cube farm (open office? I'm gone) where you save $10k, and I lose half my productivity?

Because what's good for the company isn't hat's good for the person making the decision.

Re:I want a fucking door

[Not-a-Neg]

The only upside to working at IBM's old Cottle Road site (sold and demolished now, sadly) was the office buildings were 100% offices, zero cubicles. It wasn't very pleasant though, long white hallways with white ceilings, white floors, white doors, and black door frames. Also, the office I was in had a wall of windows... that faced an area between buildings filled with pipes, weeds, and cracked concrete with a view of... the other building. The lighting in the hallways was nothing but flourescent tubes, and the only decoration was an occasional poster of yacht races.

I think it's more about not feeling trapped all da

[schematix]

Recently I worked many years in what was basically a construction trailer. It was much more glorious than it sounds though. I had my own 'office' with 3 windows and a door. Not to mention hundreds of dollars a week in snacks and Monster available at my whim. Parking was frequently less than 30' from the door. A good #2 bathroom was 1000' away, but that meant getting out and having forced exercise. Lunch was also free and always offsite. Point is that I got to be outdoors 10 times a day and that made it feel a lot more free.

Now i'm working in an office building where I have a view of planes landing and taking off at a major US airport. I am facing a 4th floor window all day and that makes things feel a little more open. But no outdoors.

Definitely beats my other desk though that's a cube on the interior of a building. You wouldn't know if Armageddon had started.

Yup!

[jroysdon]

Got my window spot back 3 weeks ago, not going to give it up again. I noticed a definite health decline without having a window.

Re:Yup!

[DontBeAMoran]

That's funny, my health got better after I bought a Mac.

Not only natural light

[LordHighExecutioner]

I would kill for having mountain view from office window, as I had in my office lab when I was a student. Not this, but something like that.

Re:Noise

[mikael]

I'm working remotely from home on a high-street apartment and the traffic lights stop the buses so that the diesel exhaust is lined up perfectly with my windows. I either have to sit in a hot room with soundproof windows closed, or a room with fresh air and industrial threshing machines running outside.

Re:I think it's more about not feeling trapped all

[froggyjojodaddy]

I have an office too but it's enclosed with no windows. And let me tell you, it's depressing. My team area is right outside my office and I've tried sitting in the cube area (fairly large cubes with privacy but also quite open) but the problem is that I often have to take phone calls and discuss sensitive issues so I find myself trekking back to the office, finish up the call, and then head back. Or someone will come by looking for me, realize I'm not "in the office" and I won't know until I run into them by chance later on.

It gets tiresome after a while so I stay in the office. I also have a multi-monitor set up in the office that's hard to replicate in a cube, mainly due to corporate costs (each hardware (e.g. monitor etc.) purchase has to go through a convoluted approval process)

The most depressing thing about an enclosed office is you have NO idea what's going on outside.

Is it pouring rain? No idea.
Did we just get hit with 12" of snow in the last 2 hours? No idea.
Is there a thunderstorm brewing? Dunno.
Is it really hot outside? Not sure, it's cool with the building A/C on


May as well be living in a cave with fluorescent lighting

I wouldn't mind some Natty Light at the office

[wayward_son]

Does beer pong count as a team building activity? Asking for a friend.

Darth Vader

[kackle]

I can see why you don't care about sunlight. Don't you work in one of those black spheres that open from the top?

Noise reduction

[Kiyyik]

We have an open plan office here, with plenty of natural daylight which is great, but what we don't have is a way to muffle any conversations going on nearby. At least with cubicles we could have relative silence; I've had to invest in some noise-canceling headphones so I can concentrate on my code.

Re:Noise reduction

[Not-a-Neg]

There's a woman going through a divorce in the cubicle next to me who spends the entire morning on the phone bitching with someone about her incompetent husband and lazy kids that won't lift a finger to help her at home. Within 30 minutes of arriving at work I have to throw on earbuds and start listening to music to drown her out.

i sit in darkness

[evanchik]

with all dark themes enabled if im on windows or macOS. so much better on you eyes, add anti blue light glasses and you wont be half blind as i am already

Bring your dog to work day?

[DontBeAMoran]

Fuck you and fuck your fucking dogs. Every day that someone brings his fucking dog to the workplace, we get a "stay at home and still get paid" day.

Re:Natural light? Nope.

[butchersong]

I don't really like separate offices but I agree the open floor plan can be a pain when you're trying to think. I bought a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones seeking some kind of isolation but... that just resulted in people walking over to my area and standing behind me awkwardly until I acknowledged them.

Re:Noise

[DontBeAMoran]

Since your choice of "room with fresh air" is nullified by "the traffic lights stop the buses so that the diesel exhaust is lined up perfectly with my windows", it was never really a valid option to begin with. Get yourself an A/C and put those soundproof windows to good use!

Re: Health insurance is an USA only thing with job

[Kielistic]

Health insurance is a huge perk here in Canada.

Your post title created this reply

[DontBeAMoran]

Re: "I want a fucking door"

Welcome to your workplace. May we help you?
Yes.

How may we help you?
You can start by wiping your fucking dumb-ass smiles off your fucking faces.

Then give me a fucking door.
A fucking glass door,
a fucking wood door,
a fucking steel door.
One fucking panel with a handle.

We don't care for the way you're speaking.
I don't care for the way you put me in a fucking cubicle
with a desk and a fucking computer that is fucking locked down.

I didn't care to fucking disable the staff monitoring software
and to bypass the fucking DNS filter
and every fucking morning have you smile
at my fucking face.

I want a fucking door
right fucking now.

May we see your employment contract?
I threw it away.

Oh, boy.
Oh, boy, what?
You're fucked.

Re:Vampires....

[DontBeAMoran]

Ah, yes. That would be Richmond.

Re:Vampires....

[DontBeAMoran]

I forgot to say, he's mostly harmless.

Re:I think it's more about not feeling trapped all

[DontBeAMoran]

The most depressing thing about an enclosed office is you have NO idea what's going on outside.

Is it pouring rain? No idea.
Did we just get hit with 12" of snow in the last 2 hours? No idea.
Is there a thunderstorm brewing? Dunno.
Is it really hot outside? Not sure, it's cool with the building A/C on.

It sure sounds bad, but...

May as well be living in a cave with fluorescent lighting.

Ah, there's your problem! Get yourself LED lighting, 5000K (daylight).

If I lean just right ...

[cascadingstylesheet]

If I lean just right ... I can see a sliver of sunlight ... or maybe a glow ...

I just wish...

[Not-a-Neg]

I could turn off the lights during the day. I don't need to read anything that isn't on a computer monitor so there is zero reason to have the lights on. All they are doing is wasting electricity, generating electrical noise (flourescent light hum), and attracting insects indoors.

I've had a corner window office before, they are not all that great, especially if they are South or West facing. There is nothing you can do to escape the heat generated and the glare from sunlight is tiresome.

In What Country?

[luis_a_espinal]

The No. 1 Office Perk? Natural Light, According To Hundreds of Employees

In what country are they interviewing? Who the hell are they interviewing? The #1 thing American workers want as a perk/benefit is a permanent, full-time job with a decent health care plan.

Re:Noise

[mikael]

I do have an extractor fan for the cooker as part of the open plan design. That works as an A/C by removing warm air.

Re:I think it's more about not feeling trapped all

[froggyjojodaddy]

Oh man...... Just thinking about the procurement process to get some none standard bulbs/light fixtures for my office is making me depressed. Id have to go through at LEAST 5 levels of approvals with 3 different business cases......

"Natural Light" shouldn't be capitalized...

[cualexander]

I read it as they were providing Natural Light, the beer. And I thought to myself, that should not be anyone's perk...That's just cruel.