> I live in a region where winter days are very short. I go to work and it's dark, I leave work and it's dark.

I have had that experience for years. It can be quite disheartening to see the sun set while you are on your way home. I do not mind the cold in the winter, but the darkness can literally be depressing.

Last year, after some health issues, my boss surprised me (in a good way), when he offered me to reduce my working hours to 30 hours a week. That went along, of course, with a proportionate cut in my salary, but I was surprised to find it is actually worth it.

I start working at the same time as before, which means I still have to get up at 05:30[1] in the morning, and in winter it is still dark when I arrive at the office. But I get to leave at 14:00 now, and even in the deepest winter, the sun is still up when I get home. I also am less exhausted when I get home, so keeping up with housework is much less of a chore now. I could shift my work time to start later and finish later, but having the afternoon to myself is worth getting up early to me. In summer, it is much easier anyway, because the sun is already rising or up when I get up. And in spring and fall, I get to watch some gorgeous sunrises, which is not a big deal in the greater scheme of things, but amazing nevertheless.

Also, at this point, imagine me ranting about DST, which gives me an hour's worth of jet lag without traveling, twice a year.

    I have had that experience for years. It can be quite disheartening to see
    the sun set while you are on your way home.

Try watching the sun set from work, then glancing at the clock and seeing that you won't leave for another hour

At least you see the sun. The pacific northwest is brutal this time of year. I have a massive UV lamp on my work desk. S.A.D.

Not to brag here but I think brutal is a bit of an overstatement. From what I can tell Seattle gets like 9,5 hours of sunlight now. That's almost two hours more than Stockholm, depending on the day. I have friends living in Luleå and two weeks ago they had less than 5 hours of sun. Now that's brutal.

The shitty thing about living in the north isn't the cold, it's the combination of cold and dark, but mostly it's the dark...

Fair enough.

Throw in the rain with lack of UV in Seattle - unless you live in Wales there's not many other places that get this many consecutive days of rain and low to no UV during winter.

We're both miserable. Sounds like we should get a beverage or two and bitch about weather together. Cheers.

Biggest disappointment when I moved from grey and rainy Scotland to Spain.

The weather in winter is close to summer in Scotland during the day, but by the time I was out of the office it was dark.

That doesn't make any sense. The days in Spain are longer in the winter by a wide margin.

go outside during lunch mang.

This right here ... so many people eat lunch at their desk. I find that I feel so much better when I take a break, both from being inside, and being in front of my computer where my work cannot escape my brain.

Agreed.I try to run strict pomodoros. Also, when ever I start to feel lethargic, I do a few squats or push ups until failure and then I always go outside for some real air (day or night). It makes me a productivity machine.

I have started going for lunch walks this winter. The effect has been dramatic. If you have low energy levels in the winter or experience SAD, definitely try lunch walks.

But it's 14 degrees out there.

If that bothers you, you simply aren't wearing proper clothing.

The difference between a refreshing chill and a harrowing cold can just be an extra sweater under your coat and a good attitude. As long as it isn't very windy, it's easy to make 14 comfortable.

As someone who lives in Minnesota (and has lived in the upper Midwest for the last 14 years)... no, it's not just "proper clothing ...and a good attitude."

Below a certain temperature, it hurts to be outside for any nontrivial amount of time. That is a strong disincentive to go outside, no matter how many sweaters you're wearing.

That is pretty rare though. I live in Sweden (not the northern part) and at my previous job I liked to take walks at lunch and as long as it is not snowing, raining or being too windy it is pretty nice even at colder temperatures.

Now I'm usually talking about over -10C (14F) but a lot of people seem to think even that is too cold but just don't wear proper clothing.

I think that "certain temperature" varies for different people, or even over time for any particular person. When I was a child the cold killed me. A few weeks ago, the highs were in the mid-teens all week around here, and I found myself completely comfortable in jeans, a sweater, hat, gloves, and a coat while outside doing farm work. The big problem at those temperatures is working up a sweat when wearing clothes that don't immediately wick it away from the body. That gets very cold quickly.

I feel like he's thinking of 14 Celsius, not Fahrenheit

> As long as it isn't very windy, it's easy to make 14 comfortable.

No, no it is not.

And I say this as someone who enjoys the cold. No matter what, if it's 14 degrees outside, I'm only going out if I absolutely must. There's no hanging out in the parking lot during lunch in that kind of weather.

It's all relative. After a couple weeks of waking up to temperatures around or below 0F, the rise to the mid-teens felt like an early Spring.

I disagree. I'm from the midwest also. Grew up in Wisconsin/Iowa, and currently live in Iowa. I live where the wind hurts my face. Why do I live where the wind hurts my face?

If it's too cold for you to go outside surely you can't complain about having to be inside at work. OP's comment was about not being able to get outside during daylight hours.

Then probably sunlight is not your biggest worry. Here in Helsinki lunch walks are a must to catch that small amount of light we get, even if it's -10 or -20.

I work a completely remote position out of Phoenix, but live in the Eastern time zone. So I'm 2-3 hours off my team depending on whether daylight savings is in or not. I've considered options like taking extended vacations to Europe. I could wake up at 9am UK, do some sight seeing. Start my 8 hour PHX work day at 3pm UK time. Work until 11pm UK time, got to sleep. Rinse, repeat. The only thing stopping me is kids in school.

+1, from Malmö, Sweden... moved here from Istanbul, Turkey. Dark winters are killing me!

My current job allows me to get to work some time between 8 and 10. As winter has gone on, I've definitely pushed closer and closer to 10 to get some daylight in the morning.

Forgive my ignorance, but aren't such places bitterly cold outside?

Scotland has pretty short days during winter, but it doesn't usually get "bitterly cold" because of the gulf stream. Though I guess it depends on your definition of "bitterly cold" - it will snow but it tends to be mushy and wet because it rarely stays below zero for long.