“Due to {Techno Babble} the air conditioning unit thermostat must at all times be set to 18 degrees Celsius. Any changes with cause {More Techno Babble}, please do not change the thermostat under any circumstances.”
I have no idea what the recommended office temperature is but is surely can not be 18 degrees C. It is fucking freezing in here, whilst my boss gets the sun on his office windows the only window in my office gets no sun at all – ergo he is toasty warm and I’m turning into a receptionisticle.
Wont be long now and they could shove a paddle pop stick in my back and market me as the latest in yummy frozen goodness.
Hmm. Just checked the thermometer here in my apartment, and it just happens to be exactly 18 C here too. (That’s 65 F for us 'Merkins.) I’m perfectly comfortable.
I don’t want to stereotype or anything, but is this a girl thing? At the office I used to work at, we had three women and five men. It seemed like the women were always “freezing”, when the guys had their shirt sleeves rolled up.
Well in my case all the men in my office building wear suits to work.
The women mostly wear skirts and blouses (no jackets), I choose to wear slacks but they are fairly thin, I’m also in an ‘office’ type shirt supplied by the company - it has short sleeves.
The men in the building all have corner offices which get the full benefit of the sun during the day.
The offices of the females working in the building are all like mine - in the centre of the building with only one window out and that does not get much sun.
I can feel the difference in temperature when I walk into one of the corner offices they are much warmer.
My request for a small heater was denied because it might upset the delicate balance of our air-conditioning system. I say if the fucking air-conditioner is that fucking delicate it needs to be fixed.
I’m doing everything I can to muster up all the sympathy I have for ya leechbabe . But with it being a balmy -43 Celsius here today, it’s taking a bit of effort!
My girlfriend is ALWAYS “fuhhhhhhhreeeeeeezing!” I keep the apartment at a comfortable-to-warm 68-70 in the winter and she LIVES under a blanket. So, basically, yea.
Well, you could come hang out in my apartment (as long as The Girlfriend™ says it’s ok…)
The outside air temperature is 2 degrees F (-17 degrees C)
I return home yesterday afternoon, and my apartment is a sweltering 88 F (31C). Apparently the thermostat or something has decided to crap itself out, so now my heaters (electric baseboard types) are running constantly. I’ve had to resort to leaving a window wide-open for about the next 30 minutes so it will cool down enough in here for me to at least fall asleep tonight.
While not wanting to overgeneralize, I’m one of those always-overheated kind of guys. I wear short sleeves almost year-round. I’ll wear long sleeved shirts about 10 days a year, and sweaters maybe once or twice (like last Thursday when it was -10 F/-23 C when I left for work).
Ditto. The women in my office are typically the ones complaining that it’s cold. Many women wear suit jackets at their desk, while no guy in the office wears a jacket indoors.
18C seems pretty chilly for an (Australian) office. It’s 25C (77F) in my office–but then again, it’s 30C (86F) outside.
I’d have to agree with that. I’ve never heard of an air-conditioning system that couldn’t stand a few degrees adjustment, and I used to work in the climate control industry. Although that was industrial refrigeration, not commercial AC.
Also, it occured to me after I made my first post…you’re in Australia, right? Which means it’s summer there. (It’s winter here, of course.) 18 C is pretty balmy in the winter, but a bit on the cool side for the summer.
So if you’re dressing for hot weather outside, but working in a cool office, I can see how that would be uncomfortable. And also, if the guys have to wear suits, why they would want it kept pretty cool. Let me guess, the boss is male, right?
Any way you can bring a jacket, or wear a long-sleeve shirt?
I just forget to bring a jacket when it is not that cold at home, might have to resort to storing winter woolies under my desk at work.
Another thing I thought of 18 degrees C would probably be quiet nice if I was at home running around the house doing stuff but at work I’m sitting at my desk not moving much all day, so I don’t generate alot of heat.
You know, the more I think about it, the more this “delicate air conditioning system” thing sounds like bullshit. (On your boss’ part, that is, not yours, leechbabe.)
As I said, I don’t know what condition a system might have such that any change in the thermostat would cause a breakdown. But assuming such a condition is possible, why wouldn’t they call their AC service company and have it fixed? Surely they have someone who does that sort of work for them. They might not want to call them if they were really strapped for cash, as AC service people are not cheap, but then running the AC at full blast all day is not cheap either. So that can’t be it.
Sounds to me as if someone has decided he wants the office kept nice and chilly all the time and has come up with some excuse to justify his preference. Did you happen to keep that memo, leechbabe? I’d be interested to hear exactly what you omitted as [Technobabble].
Oh, another thing: If some offices are being kept warmer by sunlight through the windows without the AC crapping out, there’s no excuse for denying you a space heater. The AC system certainly can’t tell the difference between heat input from the sun and an electric heating coil.
My fiance is your typical “always overheating” male, and I’m your typical “always freezing my ass off” female. I also can’t stand wearing clothes around the house. If I have to wear more than a t-shirt and boxer shorts (and frankly, I only even wear the boxer shorts the days we have his kids), I get cranky.
We play Thermostat Wars all year long. I get cold and crank it up to 80, he starts sweating and turns it down to 60. Good times =) We’ve hit on a semi-compromise, he’s agreed to buy me an electric blanket I can use at my computer desk.
I’d like to feel your pain, but I’m in the middle of a deep freeze here.
It’s been between -42 and -49 with wind chill since Sunday night, and we just got another windchill warning - you know where skin will freeze instantly, etc.
My car froze up on Monday and I spent several hours at about -47 trying to get it going, then arranging to have it towed.
Cold does not even compute anymore, whatever is beyond cold does.
Y’know, we have the same issue. Our office takes up the whole floor of a large-ish building, so at any given moment some of us are in full sun and some aren’t. I swear there can be a 15-degree difference between one side of the floor and the opposite side, or sometimes even between my office and the hallway outside, if I have the door shut.
Our ofice is about 90% female, and it drives us bonkers. But have you considered an alternate possibility - that the (male) boss wants to, ummm, bring a couple particular parts of your anatomy to the forefront? I know we all suspected ours did; there was no other earthly (oops, almost tyed “earthy”) reason for the conference room to be that cold.
Same thing happens here. Our heating system was designed by Mongo the Village Idiot. If you get one room comfortable, the room next to it will be in the 80’s (high 20’s, C). The room on the other side of that will be 50 degrees (teens C). The hallway outside will shade from tropical at one end to arctic at the other. If you adjust one room, the balance will flip-flop and people who were previously dying from heat exhaustion will get frostbite. It’s not even a matter of the building getting too much sun on one side–the whole building is pretty much in shadow.
It got to the point that the person in charge of the thermostat would just scream and run away when you brought the subject of heating up. We’ve had people working on the heating systems for years and nothing really works.
Where do you live? 'Cause that’s exactly how cold it was here with windchill. -50F with wind, -20F and below without it. I didn’t get out much yesterday, and I don’t want to be getting out as much as I will be today. It might get up to 0F by tomorrow though, so that will be a heat wave. [sub]Freezing? This place still goes up to 33F? Don’t make me laugh! I’m happy if the wind doesn’t make my ears feel like someone’s driving icepicks through them.[/sub]
All this talk about 12C and 65F makes me think one thing: Lucky bastards.
Thank-you for the link to Cecil’s column Uncle Beer
From the column:
Wonder what that makes my boss?
Once again I forgot to bring a jacket it because the temperature was just right at home and even walking to the car I didn’t feel at all chilly. For reference it is 15 degrees C outside. I’m going to purchase a thermometer for my desk and keep a track of what the temperature here is. Will at least add some excitement to my day.
Regarding the memo, I carefully filed it away in “File 13” aka the rubbish bin. But I remember it mentioned ice building up on the unit and also something about gas. The one unit heats and cools all three floors of our office building and a guy comes in and services it once a month (actually he is kinda cute, much prettier than the bloke who does the garden maintenance). The building is pretty old and stuff is starting to need replacing.
I’m having second thoughts about the heater for my desk now because I don’t remember my boss mentioning the air conditioning system as such when he said a heater would upset the delicate balance. As I once again crashed my computer because I used the shredder I realised that my boss might actually be referring to the ‘delicate balance’ of the electrical stuff.
Quick explanation I have a whole bunch of electrical stuff on my desk and the power points were getting overloaded so I asked if we could get a sparky in to look at putting in some more points. Sparky pointed out that there is only one fuse for 3 offices, that one fuse runs 3 computers, 3 printers, the laptop, UPS, shredder, CCTV system, scanner, eftpos machine, the network hub and 2 modems. Possibly adding a heater to the mix would cause problems.
Eva Luna I don’t think keeping the office chilly is anything to do with the perkiness or otherwise of the ladies chests. Mainly because my boss is usually only here for about an hour a day. When he is here for a full day his partner usually comes to work with him, she is a pretty cool lady and spends the day helping out with filing and stuff.
In the meantime I seem to have written a book so I’d best stop here.
