Hand-waving Ensues

So, over the holiday break my company, in a green frenzy, installed motion detector light switches in all of our offices. Now when I enter my office I don’t even have to flip on the switch; the motion detector smartly senses my entry and turns on the lights for me. Of course, it turns on all the lights when it was my habit before to have only some of them on. And as I am working away diligently at my computer late into the evening, motionless in my intense concentration, the lights helpfully blink out, since the sensor thinks I have left for the day.

When I am working at our California site in a smaller office with the same setup, I deal with this sudden and sometimes startling darkness easily by raising my hands over my head and frantically waving them in the air (much as you are instructed to do if you suddenly encounter a bear in the woods and need to make yourself seem larger), until the sensor sees that I am indeed still in the office and turns the lights back on. However, in my regular office here, my seat is too far away from the sensor and regardless of my hand-waving energy, I can’t get the lights back on unless I get up, walk toward the light switch, and either turn it on manually or move vigorously enough that it notices me and turns itself back on.

Of course, my chiropractor would be thrilled with this office improvement; it guarantees that in the evening after a long day, I will get up periodically and stretch briefly. Just goes to show there is always a silver lining in every cloud.

I am thinking about going over to Target and buying some of those toy guns that shoot rubber bands to hand out generously to all my co-workers – then we can shoot at the light switches to turn them back on without getting out of our seats.