A close personal friend of mine works in high-end residential construction and remodeling. The other day he began a workplace woes saga that described the landscape architect’s design for a client’s outdoor, garden lighting. A napkin sketch showed just how convoluted it was, and it had been put in who knows how long – likely 25 + years ago.

One of the challenges of his outdoor staircases, railings and deck project, he quickly discovered, was dealing with the outdoor light burnt out bulbs that were supposed to be lighting the pathway leading to the decks and staircases. This was a bit of an unexpected ask. When he started describing the difficulty of finding just these exactly right light fixtures, which are only made a certain way and, seemingly, almost obsolete, the scope creep of “just replacing a light bulb” became another story all together. He was beyond frustrated, and he’d spent several hours and made several trips trying to source these old bulbs.

The thing that got my hackles up, was how oblivious the client was to all of this. Because of their wealth, they have people that handle this for them, and both the end user and the designer of the system have no understanding, nor appreciation, for what goes into the maintaining of said lighting system. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard a tiny workplace woe about light bulbs, frankly. I think rich people spend a lot on lighting. To make the situation even more ironic, the client’s occupation had something to do with environmentalism and the preservation of the planet.

Irony … it is not just the opposite of wrinkly.

Part of the reason these light bulbs are almost obsolete, from what I have come to understand through my friend’s tiny rant, is that they are bad for the environment. There has been technological progression in the outdoor lighting industry – and no one installs them this way anymore.

My impatience and inclination toward the work-around or conflict avoidance altogether prompts the short-term solve: Workplacewoe-#-umpteen, this is definitely out of scope. Focus on the job at hand, and get those stairways, decks and railings installed, lighting be damned. Let em light the way with their iphones.