When I first got my job, it was exciting: I was just over 17 years old, working as a student, programming software for the countries' largest pharmaceutical companies all by myself.

I was placed in a small room otherwise used for storage, set to work on a laboratory table using an old Pentium Pro box with Windows 98. In the summer, the room was hot and uncomfortable... While the room did have an air conditioning unit, it sounded like a train and had only two settings: Blow cold air or off. The other equipment in the room had cooling functions that caused the room to heat up quite a bit and filled the room with constant noise. I spent about two years in that room and while I wished that it wouldn't be so noisy, I never thought of complaining to anyone -- I was happy with what I had, which was great and actually even more cool than the science-fiction I used to watch before then, because it was just as techy, but real.

Some time later, they decided to move the equipment out of the room and move me over with the others. As there was no room intended for a desk at the time, I had made some deskspace in the back end of the room, which was otherwise cluttered with empty boxes and similar disused material. While there was no real sitting space intended for human beings, I did manage to find a tall chair that allowed me to use the shelves as a desk for my brand new computer: An old Pentium MMX with Windows 2000 installed. The room had Real air conditioning (the kind where you can set a temperature) and there was no noisy machinery nearby, so I was real happy to be there. Over the next 3 years, I had continued to work there, sometime inbetween my computer had broken down and I managed to claim an old cheap P4 Celeron from storage to replace it, my work had evolved from mainly programming to mainly system administration, I had gotten into and quit college, and my employment had formalized into permanent part-time employment. I was working a lot of overtime (especially in the summer, as we had no air conditioning at home) and while I felt uncomfortable at times, with issues ranging from feeling depressed from my coworkers not caring much about my wellbeing, to back-pains from the position I was sitting in, I felt this was merely that work was paid and thus could not always be fun. I was content with the way things were.

Near the end of this period, and somewhat recently, I had even managed to convince my superiors to let me build myself a cheap new computer, with Windows XP and Linux, with which I could run SMART diagnostics on SATA drives too (which was something that came in very handy in preventing data loss by early detection of problems in the time since then). My coworker was working on convincing our superiors that the room needed to be rebuilt, since after 15 years it's layout had grown somewhat dysfunctional. While changing the layout around, he noted that the shelves I was using for a desk were unsuitable for sitting in front of and that the chair I was using was bad for my health. He arranged to get me a real desk with a real office chair. He said that after 5 years working for the company, I deserved it. While I never thought about it before, his position on that made sense to me and I came to agree with him.

In the most recent events, the company employed a few new people. Since the new room layout was not intended for that many people, my coworker complained bitterly. There was no room for another person. Seeing no other choice, I had arranged some working space using the same high chair and shelves that I had been using for the last 3 years. In the next company meeting, the new employee simply said the place was unsuitable and my superiors immediately arranged a proper office desk and chair for him, within the day.

Now maybe I didn't say this in the way that it felt to me, but a keen observer will note the difference between 3 years and a day. And while I do not blame anyone or hold any grudges on the topic, it did kinda hurt to see that my reality had just defined my 3 years of discomfort as worthless. And one should ask why exactly is one man's discomfort a more pressing problem than my own? If one is to say that I should have complained, the truth is that at the time, it didn't feel like I had a right to complain, as I had been given more then than ever before and I was happy with what I had. And the truth is, had my coworker not told me that I deserved something better, I would never have thought of my uncomfortable working space as unsuitable.

Situations like these can be found throughout my life. They usually bring a grim facial expression unto those who listen... an expression that defines the underlying emotion as something you feel when you've left someone to suffer accidentally, because you had forgotten about them. And actually, I don't want to cause that emotion. I don't want to cause anyone discomfort, even if they are to blame.

It's just the way it is... It's perfectly logical and it's wrong.