[rpcastagna]

+1000. Working in the warehouse at the bottom of a hospital would get weird sometimes because you had absolutely no indication what time of day it was -- working third shift could feel like the middle of the day since it was always so well lit.

In my experience, good lighting is pretty much the only thing you're guaranteed at various warehouses. Heating huge spaces effectively is basically impossible, rugs and other "soft" surfaces are out since they just wear down too quickly, equipment will be used continuously until it's simply unsafe... but you need good lighting to know what you're doing and keep yourself out of harm's way. As noted, even the parking lots and immediate exteriors will be very well lit as a physical security measure.

Bad lighting is the exact kind of thing people complain about when maligning "hot shots who think they know everything" and all those etceteras. It ends up being penny wise and dollar stupid when you factor in both logistical mistakes and pay outs to worker's comp when people injure themselves on the job. The equivalent in programming would be making all your developers use laptops from 12 years ago running Windows XP because you know someone who got you a really good deal.

[cannonedhamster]

I know building systems that still run on Windows 98 because the upgraded software license costs too much. When the computer isn't able to boot for whatever reason, the building loses all heat or cooling control. They've lost days of work for hundreds of people (who they don't pay for that lost time) because they refuse to upgrade the software to the current version.