Thursday 3 November 2011

Turning Up The Heat


The bane of my life is the air conditioning control in our office. There never seems to be that happy medium within a group of people when it comes to temperature - there is always someone complaining it is too hot or too cold.

I am in control of the temperature - not through any sort of democratic vote but essentially because the box is conveniently placed on the wall behind my desk. It's an odd sense of power - having control over the comfort levels of my colleagues. I can tip it up or down, depending on my mood or my own comfort levels. Personally I like it more on the cool side - there is nothing more invigorating than working hard to keep the blood flow going to the fingertips. However, the rest of the office seem to be in conflict with my comfort levels and have banned me from making any minor adjustments to the scale.

So leave it alone I have. And now they're squawking again.

The last couple of days have seen a cool change hit and the temperature outside has dropped. This in turn has impacted on the inside temperature and what was comfortable before is now a little on the cold side. There has been a chorus of coughing, a reinfection of man flu and a call for everything from jackets and mittens to blankets.

I feel like I'm trapped in a bizarre air conditioning version of Goldilocks and the three bears. After today, I really have sympathy for the bears.

I finally gave in and turned it up. They're still not happy. Now they're too hot so I turned it down. Now there's a discussion on how to booby trap the control - putting a big spider in there to jump out at me when I touch it etc. etc. Now they're moaning about the temperature before it even gets there - "it's gonna be too cold soon", "I think I'm starting to sweat"....."At least the sauna at work is free"..."It's freezing!

Such babies.

The gauge is sitting at 22 and it should be at 21, which is what they originally all agreed was the perfect temperature. A hot flush is creeping up my neck and my fingers are sliding off my perspiration-soaked keyboard. I can feel a dry cough coming on. I sacrificed my comfort to please others and what thanks did I get?

None. Nada. Zilch.

So now I have worked out the perfect solution - all it takes is a little adjustment, a small tweak to our errant control. Everyone can whinge and whine until their heart's content. The temperature is going to be perfect. A small, well placed dab of superglue should do the trick.

By the way, is it hot in here?

1 comment:

  1. You're lucky. At my old place, there was literally a fight over the air conditioning. Two guys ended up wrestling each other as one wanted it set to 21, and the other wanted it to be 19.

    They need to set up office fight clubs for stuff like this.

    http://muppetsforjustice.blogspot.com/

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