Do you ever wonder why it is that 99.999% of people keep their homes at the same or nearly the same government recommended temperature of 78ish degrees in the summer and 68ish degrees in the winter, yet they go batshit about the heat and / or air conditioning at work?
For example, I keep our house at 77 in the summer and 69 in the winter. My brother in law across the street keep his house around the same as mine in the winter but runs the a/c at about 64 degrees in the summer. When I go to his house in the summer and notice the difference, I don’t:
- touch and / or adjust the thermostat
- criticize them for having the temp so cold
-ask them how they can NOT be cold because I am freezing
-complain every second I’m there, but refuse to wear a sweatshirt or appropriate clothing, knowing full fucking well that the house will be at or around that same temperature all summer long.
So why does that same common sense mentality not apply at work?
I work with more women than men, and the women are always cold. ALWAYS. It can be a billion degrees Kelvin outside, but as soon as they step into the building, it’s “BRRRRR!! It is SO cold in here. Someone call the building management company and tell them to turn up the temperature.”
What the fuck is that? If I’m cold, I put on a jacket. If I’m going to somewhere that I know is cold or at least seems cold to me, I’ll wear an undershirt or a long sleeve shirt or a heavier shirt to make up for that.
Yet, when you come into the office, any time that scrawning broad in R&D decides she’s a little chilly, her answer isn’t to put on a goddamned sweater. It’s to have the temperature adjusted upward in the entire office to her liking, and you spend the summer sweating your everloving ass off because you can’t very well strip down to your underpants because it’s hot.
And that’s another thing. If you’re cold, wear more clothes. I am not cold, so I’ve dressed accordingly. By turning the temperature up for you, you’ve made everyone else’s choice of attire worthless. See, you can always wear more clothes if you’re cold, but I can’t wear less clothes because I am hot. Unless you like seeing a sweaty 240 pound guy in his boxers at the copier or sitting in the breakroom eating lunch.
That brings me to the issue of space heaters. Who on earth decided that it was okay to bring electric space heaters into the office? In my county, bringing any small appliances into the office is illegal for fire safety reasons. It’s also against company policy to bring in small appliances and space heaters.
Company policy.
You know, the same list of rules that says you can’t drink liquor at work, bring in firearms, sell drugs in the office, or sexually harass your co-workers.
Yet, for some reason, the reptiles (cold-blooded beings) in the office just arbitrarily decide that THIS particular rule / law shouldn’t apply to them. So they bring in these hot boxes and run them on high all day long, not conisidering even for a second that the person whose feet are on the other side of the cube wall might be on fire due to their selfish heater tactics.
They also don’t care that using those things greatly affects how the power grid in your office works. The cube blocks are setup with certain power requirements in mind, and those space heaters throw those assessments WAY out of whack and can often result in brown outs in the office or full-on power failures in entire offices.
All because someone won’t buy a $20 sweater!!
I have even complained to HR about this in the past because the crazy chick that sat across from me ran a heater all day and I was sweating my ass off every day all summer. I asked her nicely to turn it off and to obey the company policy and county laws, and she refused. She even went as far as to say “when every other person is obeying every company policy, I’ll obey that one.”
Of course, this girl was sleeping with a married executive level employee (who also doesn’t work here anymore), so I guess she didn’t take too many of our company policies and guidelines very seriously.
So I went to HR to complain, and the three HR folks I went to ALL HAD FUCKING SPACE HEATERS!! Every one of them. Read that again. The people paid to inform the employees of the company policies and enforce them were all breaking the rule themselves. EGAD!!
Needless to say, when HR doesn’t obey the company policies, not very many people will either. So I spent the next five months sweating my ass off thanks to my feet being in a kiln every day.
(edit to add and reiterate: The parties in question no longer work here. None of them).
It’s also nice when you crawl under someone’s desk to work on their computer and their spaceheater comes on a burns your retinas. Thanks alot for that.
So what is the solution?
It’s simple really. If everyone dressed according to the climate in their office, this problem would never happen again.
See, I know you like your little mini-dress made of very light clingy material that is low cut and runs up to your mid-thigh. But you don’t work outside on a patio tending a beerwagon at Senor Frogs. You work in a climate controlled office.
Regardless of how hot (or cold) the weather dork on television tells you it’s going to be outside, the temperature in your office will be the same as it was yesterday and last week and last year at this time. If you’d dress like you know that information, we’d all be best friends and I wouldn’t be spending the day mopping my brow.
What say you?