The one thing that makes this man stand out in my memory is that whenever we parted ways, he would say “make it a good day”. I usually said “you, too”, or something similarly uninspired.

What he was saying finally struck me one day. He was not telling me to have a good day. He was telling me to make it a good day.

As nice as the sentiment sounded, I didn’t really see how it applied to me. My job sucked, and it was causing me all kinds of stress – even to the point of visiting the emergency room. I experienced a lot of anxiety and had a few panic attacks.

I got to the point where I reacted badly to everything that happened at work. I can remember telling my manager more than once that decisions made by upper management were going to cause me to have to take another trip to the hospital. He finally got tired of my complaining and told me that work was not causing me stress; it was my reaction to work that was causing stress. That was not the answer I was looking for, so I added him to my mental list of stressors.

Fast forward a couple of years to a new job. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m now leading a pilot project using an agile process (Scrum). For the first several iterations everything annoyed me. My developers couldn’t follow simple instructions. They couldn’t write good code. They had to be constantly prodded to keep them going. Every day had its share of “what now?” moments.

For some reason I started thinking about the man at the gym again. This time, it paired perfectly with my old manager’s advice. Despite my annoyances, work continued to get done and things were working. It wasn’t the work that was bothering me. It was my reaction to work.

I’ve been trying to be very mindful of how I’m reacting to things at work. I still get pulled in a lot of different directions, and I’m still having trouble getting my team involved in the process. What I’m not doing is worrying about it. I’m learning to be more aggressive about my time management. Instead of wondering why my team can’t grasp simple process concepts, I’m asking them how I can explain or demonstrate it better.

Don’t get me wrong. There are a million things I’d like to change about my environment and my team every day, but instead of waiting for a good day to just “happen” to me, I’m becoming an active participant and “making it a good day”.

In the last several weeks, I’ve noticed that my anxiety level has plummeted, my stomach is not upset every day, and I’m sleeping better. That’s good enough for me.

The number one aggravator of my problem is fluorescent lighting – especially in older buildings. According to this page, most older office buildings are using ballasts that operate at 60Hz, meaning the light cycles on and off 120 times a second. This is definitely noticeable. Most office buildings I have worked in are older, so I think it’s safe to assume that many of the fixtures are still using the older ballasts. New ballasts are supposed to operate at around 25,000Hz, eliminating flicker and buzz. I’ll believe it when I see it.

One thing that I found, but have been unable to find credible sources for, is the effect of aspartame on flicker vertigo. Aspartame is used as a sugar substitute in nearly every brand of diet soda. When you’re a person like me who has to watch his sugar intake, diet sodas are pretty much the norm. My drinking habits during the day used to include water or iced tea in the morning, diet soda with lunch, and more water or tea in the afternoon. I began to have problems with extreme vertigo and headaches right after lunch. As soon as I cut out the aspartame, the vertigo subsided to its normal, flickering overhead light caused intensity. So, even though I’ve been unable to find good evidence for the aspartame link, it seems to hold some weight.

Once upon a time, I had my own office. I had the luxury of not turning the overhead lights on every morning, which was immensely helpful. For some reason, however, most people seem to be unable to function with the lights off. From what I understand, nearly every person that uses a computer suffers from some level of CVS. Why do people insist on making it worse for themselves?

I get to my current job early – anywhere from an hour to two hours before everybody else. Needless to say, I never turn on the overhead lights. If I need to see something, my cube has small lights I can turn on that offer indirect lighting. The first person after me to show up in the mornings seems to take the lack of light as a personal affront, and turns them all on. As the lights come on, I can actually feel myself starting to squint and the first glimmerings of a headache start to form.

So far I’ve been laughed at when I suggest leaving the lights off, been told I can’t unscrew the lights that are nearest me, and mocked because I must be some kind of wimp to get headaches from the lights. Hopefully my eye doctor can come up with something that I can use as leverage. I’ve even thought about building a makeshift roof for my cube.