Warning: Epileptics should not enter

Our lab had fluorescent lights that were on pretty much twenty-four hours a day, and, as a result, burned out all the time. When fluorescent lights burn out, they flicker. At first, the flickering was so minor it was almost imperceptible, and as it would slowly get worse we would continuously adapted to the decrease in light. But eventually, we’d be left with all the lights burned out except for one that flickered on and off with the regularity of Chinese water torture, and the lab would be full of grad students hunched over benches, squinting at samples in the near-dark, and driven mad by the incessant flickering. At this point, it would finally occur to us to tell Operations that we needed bulb replacements.

So someone from Operations would come and replace the burned-out, flickering bulbs. All of them. All at once. The lab would suddenly be transformed from a dim cave to a brilliantly lit room, causing all of the squinting, mad grad students to flee to dark corners and whimper. The light! It burns!