It’s 7:30 in the morning. You walk into your office when the
temps outside are already 75 degrees. You think to yourself, “Ahhh, the
comforts of a programmed thermostat,” as you sip on your hot coffee, almost
happy to be at work where the air conditioning hums softly and cools you down
until you no longer feel like you took a steam bath walking the two blocks from
the parking garage to the building.
A couple of hours later you notice your toes feel a tad
chilly, but you brush it off because – hey – you’re not going to complain about
a little chill when you can look out the windows facing the street and see
passersby crawling through the heat vapors, begging for water or beer from some
kind soul. Even going down three floors to the lobby to check the mail sounds
like too much of an effort… what if someone opens the lobby door and sweltering
temps grasp the walls, causing instant heat exhaustion? No, no – best to stay
in your office and find some non-arduous task like
tackling that three-month-old box of shredding, or drafting your 12th email to
coworkers with a list of what not to
put in the recycling bin.
Your boss, whose office has a large window and a deck that
overlooks the water (actually, overlooks the roof of a building next to a wharf,
where pigeons in droves tend to…. unite), is fanning herself with your recycling email and asking you to “bump the air on” because
her room has been subject to the morning sun which is deceptively strong, and maintenance
just came in to check out a report of smoke wafting out the deck door.
An hour or so into the frost cycle a coworker comes out of
her nearby office in an LL Bean parka and mukluks and asks (as she is reaching
for the thermostat), “Mind if I turn it down a bit?”
What have we got here, folks?
Summer in Maine, where you drive to work with the air
conditioning on, have your heater going on the way home, and put the ceiling
fans on high as soon as you enter the house. At least in your own environment
you have some control of how the temperature is set. At work, not so much. We
have so many different zones in our office that someone can walk in and start
sweating (less so now that we have a new programmable thermostat that cranks up
the ac at 7 a.m.), turn the corner toward a hall where you dare not wear open
toed shoes for fear of frostbite, proceed a little further to what is sometimes
referred to as “the conference sauna” and finally come to the end offices,
otherwise known as Siberia. Prior to the new thermostat when the
lobby was often beyond what you would call balmy, clients experienced a strange mix of
various tolerances.
“Hello, have a seat here in our lobby. Would you like a
glass of water while you wait?”
“Yes, please… sure warm in here.”
“Haha, yes – I think people are bringing all the hot air
from outside in with them.” (This may have been slightly illogical considering we are
on the third floor of a building, and chances are the client took the elevator,
thus leaving the hot air far behind, I would think. But hey, small talk is small
talk.)
After three glasses of water and a towel to wipe the
sweat from the client’s brow, we proceed to the conference room.
“The others will be right in. Is there anything I can get
for you?’
“Maybe a cup of coffee, or even hot chocolate? That walk
down the hall was a bit brisk… and do you happen to have a sweater I might be
able to borrow?”
“I can see if we have anything that will fit over your suit
jacket, but I should warn you, this room doesn’t cool off as well, so you may
find yourself a little too warm after the coffee.”
“I’ll take my chances (blowing on hands).”
By the end of the meeting part of my duties is typically to
revive the client from a heat-induced nap and send them on their way – into the
building hallway that is 15 degrees cooler and will have him high stepping (and
needing a bathroom) onto the sidewalk.
Why don’t we have these same issues the other nine months of
the year? Granted, it’s not like we always agree about what the thermostat should
be set to in the office, but from late September until June we are pretty
balanced, with only an occasional adjustment needed. Something about summer
triggers stronger preferences. Then again, maybe it’s simply the idea of
working through the summer in a place nicknamed “Vacationland” as hordes of carefree tourists and anxious vendors line the streets and sidewalks and the only access
you have to the outside world for the majority of the day is to mail a letter.
Fine, back to temperatures. Here’s my theory. You can always
put more clothes on. You can only take so much off…. at least in most
countries.
I am not heat tolerant. Sweating does not feel good to me.
Now S on the other hand will sweat with the best of them. He can tolerate temps
well above normal without withering, while I am whining as soon as it hits 80.
Our girls are also opposites. OK, who is more like her father, lives in a city
where a breeze is a luxury, and while she may not enjoy walking home from work
when the temps are in the high 90s, she is not leaning against buildings on the
way, frothing at the mouth, whites of her eyes showing, as I would be. Her sister YK would rather
keep the air conditioning cranked and have to put on four layers than take a
chance on opening windows and feel a smidgen of humidity. As much as I prefer
to have the windows open and feel the breezes throughout our home, I am with
her when it comes to this. And yet we all managed to live in the same house for
many years with very few arguments about what temperature to live with. Of
course, agreeing on who does the laundry is a completely different story.
But summer in Maine is short, and so we are forced to make
the most of it knowing these fickle temperatures – inside and out – won’t last very long. We are off to enjoy the weekend
before heading back to the office and preparing for the cold and hot wars once
again.
I just have to make sure I packed gloves – and maybe a
bathing suit – for Monday morning.
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