Yesterday was a typical Florida afternoon, sudden down pour of rain, but not a storm. Just slow solid rain for about 45 minutes. Rain always seems to remind me to stop and take a break, watch the world go by a bit. That got me to thinking about having or not having a window and how much I value it.

My current office has windows running the length of it, from about 3.5 feet up to the ceiling. It’s a second floor office and the view is ok – looking out/down there are a few trees, but about 75 feet past that is a standard strip mall, and the backside at that. It’s a standing seam metal roof, and when it rains it’s mildly interesting, watching the water roll down in sheets. It’s mildly amusing too, as one of the stores in the strip mall is a bar, and on the roof on the back side (facing me) are three beer bottles. Always makes me wonder first, why some knucklehead would throw a bottle on the roof, and then, what kind of skill/luck does it take to get it on the roof without breaking and/or rolling back off?

On sunny days there’s always a squirrel or two out, and it’s not uncommon for them to leap the 5 feet or so to the building and then run along the window sill just barely hanging on. Makes this scratching sound that makes you turn to watch for the few seconds before they are gone, never seen one fall yet! The windows carry over into our small kitchen area, and perhaps the strangest thing we’ve seen was a vulture perched on a dead limb just outside the window…while we talked about economy!

The office before that was horrible for me, I had no windows at all. Hated it, but at the time it was the best we could find, smaller spaces being hard to find. Back before that, I spent just about 2-1/2 years in a 3rd floor office that looked out over a small parking area to a tree line. Third floor actually gives you a decent range to look, and the thing I remember most about that was that if you look at the top of the tree line you’ll see trees “fighting” for top position, the winners being very tall but very thin in most cases, sticking just above the rest to get max sunlight. Probably my favorite office/view so far. Before that I was in an interior office, and my only view outside was through the CIO’s office directly across the hall (looking out onto the same tree line), but it’s not the same.

Having windows isn’t quite the same as having a view, but it’s a start.

Does it make a difference? Maybe not to everyone, or maybe more accurately, not everyone finds it to be a big deal. I’d be very reluctant to go back to an office without an outside view, I do some of my best thinking looking out the window drinking coffee.