Feeling fine

I have just solved one of the greatest mysteries pertaining to the office where I'm currently working.

(It's a quiet place in general; spacious, corporate and businesslike, but with an understated character of its own. Despite everything up here being brand-new, clean, neat and freshly remodeled, the place has a certain comfortable familiarity about it because of the people who work here. There is quite a variety of nationalities represented; as well as plenty of people who are just plain interesting and add a little feeling of charm to the austere office.)

The place is a maze of cubicles and frosted-glass-walled offices; but the cubicles are nice. They are open and spacious and surrounded on two sides by a large desk and on one side by a row of tall cabinets, which are just a little too tall for a six-footer to see over, but have generous space between them and the brightly-lit, paneled ceiling.

And that's what I have been trying to figure out: There are no light fixtures in the ceiling. Why is the ceiling so bright?

For a while I thought it was the little light fixtures at the sides of the ceiling, by the walls. They shine on the ceiling and make a bright spot there. But that didn't explain why the whole expanse of ceiling was so glowingly brilliant, lighting up the whole room with diffused brightness. There had to be light shining on the ceiling from somewhere.

So I looked around for another while, and finally I hit upon an idea. I stuck my hand out over the top of the cabinets which are too tall to see over. There was light shining on my hand!

I stepped out into the long hallway and looked around for a while to see if anyone was watching. Then I jumped a few times.

Yep--all the rows of cabinets had bright fluorescent light fixtures set into their tops, all the way down. The lights shone up and illuminated the ceiling!

I walked happily back to my desk.