Fluorescent lights drive some workers batty

George Tobia's lighting epiphany came 13 years ago when, sitting in his office as the setting sun cast a rosy glow, it occurred to him to turn off the 12 fluorescent bulbs over his head. Suddenly awash in natural light, he said to himself, "This feels so good."

That's when the Boston lawyer decided he had to do something about his office lights. Two floor lamps, two desk lamps and two table lamps later, Tobia enters his office each morning and ceremoniously extinguishes the overhead fluorescent lights that his assistant has carefully turned on a short time before. "I hate the fluorescents so much that I actually derive pleasure from having the hitting of that 'off' switch be my first in-office act of the day," Tobia says.

The fax machine may be maddening and the computer may promote hostility, but no office gear can put you in a funk as quickly as fluorescent lighting. At best, it provides the light of a cloudy sky. At worst, it's the source of physical maladies and is a creepy and synthetic downer. Far from the come-hither glow of candlelight, fluorescent bulbs cast a hell-and-back pall over everyone.

Which is why the moment Liza Abrams got a switch for the fluorescent lights in her office, she hid it behind a pile of boxes to prevent anyone from flipping it on. The lights "show imperfections whether they're there or not," she says.

Commercial builders love fluorescent lights because they're so efficient. They run on about a quarter of the electricity that incandescent bulbs require, and they last roughly 10 times as long. The problem is, most office workers end up getting a lot more fluorescent light than they need, pretty much canceling out that efficiency. Many companies also leave their lights on all night long, probably because no one can find the switch. It's an example of how corporations, as they attempt to maximize efficiency, often minimize it instead.

"The lighting in most offices is much brighter than it needs to be, especially with computers," producing glare and eyestrain, says James LaMotte, a professor of optometry at the Southern California College of Optometry.

"People apply efficient lighting stupidly," adds Naomi Miller, who runs her own design firm and formerly worked at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center. "There are a heck of a lot of offices that are very badly lit."

Fluorescent lights are actually phosphor-coated glass tubes containing argon gas and small amounts of mercury. Electricity excites the gas, producing ultraviolet radiation that the phosphor converts to visible light. Early fluorescent lights flickered at a rate of 60 cycles a second. They also cast fewer colors than incandescent light, making everyone under them look jaundiced.