Our facilities guy came to my office because I mentioned it was cold. He says it feels great in my office. I said it’s below 70. He said, “There’s no way it’s below 70.”
I showed him my thermometer which has two sensors in two places, and displays the temperatures of those two spots. It shows 69.8 and 68.8 (spots about 5 feet apart).
He repeats, “There’s no way it’s below 70.”
Why the disbelief in a thermeter, plus my personal estimation that it’s too cold?
When the refrigerator repair guys come by, they scoff at thermometers I use. Even when the last guy comes and sees I have an analog and a digital thermometer, and they both read the exact same temperature all the time, he figures they must both be wrong by the same amount, and both be reporting the same wrong number.
Even 68.8 is quite warm for me, so I understand why the guy says it feels great.
It’s not at all unlikely that both thermometers are off. My car is usually +/- 5 of the readings on bank signs, for a temperature swing of 10 degrees.
Can you get a space heater? It sounds like you’re on central heat; I’m personally not very happy when they turn the heat up in the office, it makes me nauseous.
68 is NOT too cold. It is pleasant, get a sweater on pansy.
As to the actual OP, probably because some people run hotter than others. For example, when it hits the mid sixties here, the islanders all are wearing parkas while I’m walking the dog in shorts and a tank top.
If it’s below 70, does he have to do something? If it’s below 70, does your office have to spend more money on heating? Does he have an incentive to claim it’s not 69?
The standard temperature for an office environment is about 69 to 72 deg F. OSHA mandates a minimum temperature of 65 deg F, so technically your office is well within the normal range and your facilities folks aren’t required to do anything about it.
Your typical thermometers can often be off by a couple of degrees. If these are cheap thermometers then I wouldn’t place a whole lot of faith in them. On the other hand, the human body is horrible at detecting absolute temperatures. Put one hand in cold water and one hand in hot water and let them get adjusted to the temperature. Then put both hands under running water that is in between the two temperatures. One hand will feel the water as warm and the other hand will feel the water as cold. Even an inaccurate thermometer is probably more accurate than a person at detecting the absolute temperature.
Humans are not good at judging absolute temperature but quite good at judging relative temp. Try this experiment:
Get three glasses of water. One at room temp, one icy cold and one warm. Plunge the index finger from one hand into the icy water and from the other hand into the warm. Keep both fingers in place for a minute or two, then plunge both together into the room temp water.
You will find the finger from the cold water will now feel warm and the other will now feel cold
The upshot is it depends on where your facilities guy came from that determines how warm 69 degrees feels.
The OP was saying that below 70 was his idea of cold, not that 70 would be hunky dory.
But it’s easier to wear more layers to be warmer in an office that’s a bit too cool than to wear less layers to cool off when too warm, so I can see why they keep it a bit on the cool side. Not that the facilities guy isn’t a bonehead.
Seems to me that the thermometer thing is just a literal manifestation of the tendency to assume that your direct personal experience of the world and “gut instinct” are reflective of how it works in general.
Exactly! We all have different in comfort levels, even excluding menopausal women. (And men at climacteric? *) But even beyond that, some of us experience indoor temperature differently from time to time. This may be in part due to other external factors, such as indoor humidity, but I suspect daily biological rhythms may be at work here. (Hmm… “at work here” – I like 68 very much and dislike temperatues as "high " as 72, especially on a job where I have to figure things out in a hurry.)
So here it is: If you are involved in some industy, research, or academic activity that requires you to take an accurate thermometer’s reading seriously, do so!
But beyond that, it is all a conspiracy!
“Jack”
The new term seems to be andropause. If that’s what you kids are calling it these days… Anyway, the wiki on andropause says the whole idea of a male “menopause” - I believe it was Sol Weinstein who termed it “womenopause” – is still a controversial one.
In an old work office, the administrative assistant was very cold natured and keeps a space heater in her space, nd frequently runs the space in the summer. She couldn’t figure why it was always so cold in the office in the summer until I pointed out her space heater was underneath the thermostat.:smack:
Between the temperature reported on the McDonald’s marquee outside my apartment, my car’s temperature reading, and the temperature reported in my zip code from weather.com all of which I can check within a minute or two of each other, I easily get a 10-degree range of variance. So I take any reading with a grain of salt as only a general indicator of how hot or cold it is, I don’t get overly hung up on the numbers.
Because your body is subject to feeling the same temperature differently while the thermometer will always feel it the same. A temperature may feel comfortable for quiet work sitting at the computer and very hot for any physical work. You can feel comfortable and just speaking on the phone or anything which makes you somewhat excited can make you feel warm. A thermomether just sits there and is not subject to this. I trust a thermometer over a human any time.
In my experience in offices women want higher temperature and my guess is that this is due to (1) smaller body mass, (2) lower metabolism and (3) they tend to wear lighter clothes.
Humidity also makes a difference in how we perceive temperature.
Also bear in mind that the radiant temperature of walls is important in how we feel. Even if the surrounding air is at a comfortable temperature we may feel chilly if the walls are cold and we may feel hot if the walls are hot.
There are many factors which affect our comfort but a thermometer just gives you the temperature.
I’m generally forced to wear a wool coat at my desk until the office temperature gets above 75F. Then again, I’m the only person within 200 feet with a BMI under 22-25, so there you go.
I don’t believe thermometers because my home thermometer lies to me. It’s programmable, and says it is a couple degrees warmer than the older analogue thermometer it replaced. I suspect it is that way on purpose, so I can brag about how much money it is saving me even though my house is the same temperature.
It will also tell me the house is the temperature I set it at if it’s a degree off either way. For example, if the house is really 69, it will read 70 if that’s its setting. If I raise the setting a couple degrees, it will then say 69. If I set it back to 70, it will read 70 again. If I turn it off, it will read 69. If I turn it back on, it will read 70 again.
I like all of the responses (except for those calling me a pansy) and I think this is the closest to hitting it on the nose.
I didn’t think my facilities guy had a problem, I was just wondering why he doesn’t trust my thermometer.
Everyone is different.
Our facilities guy is on the move all day, he’s building cubicles and moving boxes, and other physical labor. I’m sure he’s hunky dory at 65 degrees. His office is in the warehouse of our building, and doesn’t benefit from central air. In his office this morning, I could see my breath, and I was wearing my jacket and a scarf. He was sitting there with jeans and shirt and was fine.
Me, I’m an office worker. I sit all day at work, and when I go home I sit all day there, too. Despite this, I’m only about 10 pounds overweight - not enough to insulate me. I’m comfortable around 72 or 73.
My girlfriend likes to keep the apartment abominably hot. She puts a little shawl-like thing on every time it dips below 77 degrees. When I get home, the apartment is often 80 or 82 degrees, which makes me start to sweat and feel sick, and I have to open windows or turn on the air conditioner to bring the temp down to what I consider a reasonable temperature, which usually causes her to put on the shawl.
– is still 
