Although I admit to stocking up on $5 fake pashminas from the street, just to keep warm at the office during summer, I prefer that the office stays cold. For three reasons:
1) Unprofessional skimpy outfits are significantly reduced.
2) I don't smell the B.O. of that sales guy who spends his lunch pumping weights at the gym and ...
3) the putrid smell of his tuna sandwhich doesn't linger around as long when the office is an ice box.
Who cares if I can't feel my feet?
I have a theory: air conditioning should be set based on the outside temperature. When we keep it really really cold, we never have a chance for our bodies to adjust to the warm weather. What matters, I think, is the differential between inside and out. So on a 90 degree day, you could cool to, say, 78, and on a 100 degree day, you could cool to, say 85 or something. This would spare us from freezing to death, make the air conditioning people happy, and save money and the environment as well!
I need to share this with my office managers. They keep the building so cold that I have to rub my hands together and blow on them, like I'm standing outside in the Arctic in winter.
What I find most frustrating about the use of A/C is that I live in Florida, and for some reason, almost every public building seems to feel the need to crank the A/C down to 68 to compensate for the fact that it is hot and muggy outside. I'm like, hello, it's FLORIDA, if you don't like the heat, then kindly GET OUT OF HERE and move back to Michigan, or wherever it was you came from.
Seriously, A/C is woefully abused in states with warm climates.
@whynotshesaid: Besides, from an energy stand-point, climate control is one of the biggest energy suckers out there. I understand needing the heat when it's 32 outside, but I think there are different, more efficient ways to use things instead of trying to recreate our own private temperature-paradise inside every building we go into, regardless of climate outside.
@whynotshesaid: But at least you can wear a sweater or shawl when it gets cold. I used to work for a place that clearly had too many older ladies because in winter it was UNBEARABLY hot. I could not wear a sweater because it was always 85+ in there. I would have to wear several layers throughout the winter (since I walked/rode bike there) and strip it all off to summer clothes when I got to the office. And to make it worse, there was no water cooler, so I almost died from dehydration/ heat exhaustion.
@AlphonsoMango: Yikes! Well, that's no good either. Surely there has to be a middle ground. I personally like to keep my home at 75-78 degrees - any higher and I feel like I'm starting to bake from the inside out.
I wonder if it's due to muscle mass? The guys I've known who dealt worst with heat were always muscular guys who went to the gym a lot or did physical jobs. My less muscly male friends don't seem nearly as bothered by hot weather.
@wrapped in plastic: possibly, I do have lots of muscle for a female, and I'm generally the one who's always walking around in a tank top while everyone is wrapped up but paradoxically I have very cold feet and hands. I think I can ignore the cold more easily doesn't mean my body doesn't get cold.
@EmpressZombie: I'm the same way. My entire body can be fine, to the point where I can wear tank tops, but my hands will feel like they've been chiseled from blocks of ice.
Perhaps my perspective is different, as I reside in Arizona(where it is currently 118 AND in the middle of the humid monsoon season), but everywhere I go, be it work, the local Target, or friend's homes and cars, I am surrounded by people of both genders who whine about "how coooold it is." Seriously? It is oppressively hot outside, and you want the A/C set at 89 degrees? You want to drive around in this humid, monsoon heat with the WINDOWS down and the A/C off? Don't tell me to "wear less clothing," just put on a fucking long sleeve shirt. Instead of setting the A/C at my ideal temperature of 60 degrees, I am willing to compromise and set it at 70-75, depending on the day. I ask you, oh shivering ones, why are you unable to compromise, too? You want it to be 80. I want it to be 60. Let's meet somewhere in the middle. And you don't "catch a cold" from being cold, by the way. Viruses don't magically appear because the temperature is below 90 degrees. Science fail.
As far as air conditioning being another product of a "man's world," I call bullshit. I doubt the A/C being below 85 degrees is a product of the evil patriarchy. Regardless of gender,it is difficult to work when you are boiling in your own sweat. It is hard to look professional when you have massive sweat stains under your arms and down your back because the temperature is set at 85 in a building full of people who generate even MORE body heat. It is not enjoyable to go out to a bar where the temperature is cooler OUTSIDE than inside the bar(where you just paid a ten dollar cover charge). It is not what I would consider a grand old time when I wake up in the middle of the night, nauseated, uncomfortable and sticking to the sheet because my roommate felt the need to TURN ON THE HEAT in September.
@Danielle Kouyoumdjian: People do this in Florida - turn the a/c down to 60 - and sorry, but it drives me nuts. Some of us came to warm climates because we actually like being warm. Funny that.
@whynotshesaid:
@Danielle Kouyoumdjian:
I ask you, oh shivering ones, why are you unable to compromise, too? You want it to be 80. I want it to be 60. Let's meet somewhere in the middle.
So, the burden is upon us to change, then? I live in a warm climate, therefore I should set the A/C to match the temperature outside so you can enjoy being warm(because you moved here because you like the heat), others be damned?
As I said, I am willing to compromise(as are most people who are always hot) and not turn the A/C down to 60(because I recognize that YOU and others like you get cold unless it is 80+ degrees indoors), but meet somewhere in the middle. I think having the A/C in the range of the seventies is perfectly reasonable when it is well over 100 degrees outside. You should try it sometime. Take what you want, consider others, and meet somewhere in the middle. "Funny that," indeed!
Here's the thing, though: At work, if cold, one can bring clothing and put it on. If hot, one often is limited by the amount of clothing that can be taken off. In short: Never share an office with a menopausal woman that has access to the thermostat, unless you are also a menopausal woman.
Given this research, it's quite telling that in pretty much every office building in America it's all AC, all the time. I've never seen, heard of, or worked in an office that wasn't freezing cold, regardless of the season.
@escapefromny: I had one of those space heaters that I used to keep under my desk and I would use it in SUMMER months, just to keep my fingers from going numb. So much energy wasted, it's insane.
@Gumbina80: It's the energy waste that really gets me. Where I work, I can wear a lined wool suit, turtleneck, scarf, and boots, and still be cold in the winter, but at least that's winter.
In the summer, you want to wear sandals and skirts, but even with heavy pants and long sleeves (and still a scarf) there are days when my fingers are too cold to type. When it's 90 degrees out! But all our power overusage is blamed on people forgetting to turn off their monitors at night.
@Bayley: Oh, I know! My work is like this, too. Right now, I am on leave and working at a place with like, no A/C and it's muggy and hot and terrible (like, I can feel the sweat running down my body hot). And that sucks. But I also hate being super-cold. I was wearing my winter coat for awhile at the other job, because being on the floor was just hellish. It's set by corporate, so no one can change it.
It also drives me crazy to have my glasses fog up every time I enter/exit a store.
You notice that it's almost always women doing this to one another, when you read about stories like these? You seldom hear stories about packs of young men suddenly turning on one of their own this viciously. I can't figure it out.
I'm going to hell, but this reminded me of The Sopranos...between the one where Christopher and I-can't-remember-the-other-one get stuck in the woods and have to eat packets of ketchup, and the episode where they kill Adriana in the woods....I'm a bad person.
08/04/09
1) Unprofessional skimpy outfits are significantly reduced.
2) I don't smell the B.O. of that sales guy who spends his lunch pumping weights at the gym and ...
3) the putrid smell of his tuna sandwhich doesn't linger around as long when the office is an ice box.
Who cares if I can't feel my feet?
08/04/09
08/04/09
What I find most frustrating about the use of A/C is that I live in Florida, and for some reason, almost every public building seems to feel the need to crank the A/C down to 68 to compensate for the fact that it is hot and muggy outside. I'm like, hello, it's FLORIDA, if you don't like the heat, then kindly GET OUT OF HERE and move back to Michigan, or wherever it was you came from.
Seriously, A/C is woefully abused in states with warm climates.
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/04/09
08/03/09
As far as air conditioning being another product of a "man's world," I call bullshit. I doubt the A/C being below 85 degrees is a product of the evil patriarchy. Regardless of gender,it is difficult to work when you are boiling in your own sweat. It is hard to look professional when you have massive sweat stains under your arms and down your back because the temperature is set at 85 in a building full of people who generate even MORE body heat. It is not enjoyable to go out to a bar where the temperature is cooler OUTSIDE than inside the bar(where you just paid a ten dollar cover charge). It is not what I would consider a grand old time when I wake up in the middle of the night, nauseated, uncomfortable and sticking to the sheet because my roommate felt the need to TURN ON THE HEAT in September.
08/04/09
08/04/09
@Danielle Kouyoumdjian:
I ask you, oh shivering ones, why are you unable to compromise, too? You want it to be 80. I want it to be 60. Let's meet somewhere in the middle.
So, the burden is upon us to change, then? I live in a warm climate, therefore I should set the A/C to match the temperature outside so you can enjoy being warm(because you moved here because you like the heat), others be damned?
As I said, I am willing to compromise(as are most people who are always hot) and not turn the A/C down to 60(because I recognize that YOU and others like you get cold unless it is 80+ degrees indoors), but meet somewhere in the middle. I think having the A/C in the range of the seventies is perfectly reasonable when it is well over 100 degrees outside. You should try it sometime. Take what you want, consider others, and meet somewhere in the middle. "Funny that," indeed!
08/03/09
08/03/09
I always think of it this way: I can wrap up, but when you're hot you can't take EVERYTHING especially in the office.
08/03/09
A man's world, indeed.
08/03/09
08/03/09
In the summer, you want to wear sandals and skirts, but even with heavy pants and long sleeves (and still a scarf) there are days when my fingers are too cold to type. When it's 90 degrees out! But all our power overusage is blamed on people forgetting to turn off their monitors at night.
08/04/09
It also drives me crazy to have my glasses fog up every time I enter/exit a store.
01/30/09
01/30/09
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01/30/09
i hope the families of the girls who were arrested are just bursting with pride.
01/30/09