Monday, March 11, 2024

This is the point when I get really tired of wearing sweaters to the office


I prompted the AI Blog Post Image Generator with "white guy in a sweater" and I love the result. This fake person perfectly conveys the feeling of angst (and frostbite) I'm trying to convey here.

If you choose to live on the southern shore of Lake Erie like I do, you have absolutely zero room to complain about snow, wind, cold, or really anything weather-related.

One way or another, you have options. You can move south. You can go someplace where your face doesn't hurt for extended periods of time during the year. You can become a snowbird.

So when I start complaining about the weather five seconds from now, please understand I have no right to do so.

That said, this whole "winter" thing has run its course, as far as I'm concerned. I respectfully request that my local government, or whoever is in charge of flipping the switch from one season to the next, do so now.

By the time we get to this point in March, even with the sorts of mild winters we've had the last couple of years, I feel like we've paid our dues. Enough of this, let's move on to something resembling spring.

And while we're at it, let's make it possible for me to start wearing only button-downs or thin pullovers to work. As it is, I've run through almost every combination of sweater and shirt I have in my closet. Time for something new.

The problem is that, in my office anyway, it doesn't matter what time of year it is. It's always cold. Always. February, July, September...doesn't matter, it's cold. And thus I need to wear layers when I'm working.

There is a thermostat in my office. It's located under my desk near the floor. Really, that's where they put it.

But its location isn't the problem. The problem is that the thermostat itself is fake. Either that or they simply haven't connected it to the HVAC system in any meaningful way.

Whether I set the dial to 85 degrees or 55 degrees, the conditions in my office are perpetually chilly. As  my dad Bob Tennant would have described it, "colder than a well digger's ass in the Klondike."

The point is, I would love to have at least a few months of the year in which I can wear, say, only a polo to the office and feel fine. But it's impossible. I start showing signs of hypothermia by 10 in the morning if I do that.

So I will continue with the sweaters from now until...well, indefinitely, I guess. I could submit a maintenance ticket to have the issued fixed, but experience suggests the chances of success there are about as close to zero as you can get while still accurately calling it a "chance."

In the end, I'm not complaining about the weather so much as the artificial climate in my office. There is, I would say, solid justification for that.

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