Happy to Report That Cold Offices Are Verified to Be Terrible
A Cornell University research study used the scientific method to determine that when temperatures in offices were below 68 degrees, “employees committed 44% more errors and were less than half as productive,” versus when temps were 77 degrees. FORTY FOUR PERCENT MORE ERRORS. This is important! This explains Everything (this explains my typos and your typos).
Mistakes aren’t from being distracted or wistful or uncommitted to the cause, they’re from being in an office with OPPRESSIVE CENTRAL AIR. Number one reason not to work in an office building: oppressive central air. (Number two: fluorescent lights.) (Number three: industrial carpet) (Number four: the color gray) (Number five: communal keys to the bathrooms)
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Previously on The Billfold
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Now that image has got me thinking, “But are cold offices terrible for VAMPIRES??”
Anecdotal evidence: my office is freezing, and I have spent 90% of today making/drinking tea, planning imaginary trips to tropical locations, and complaining about how cold I am.
So in a previous job, a colleague tried to take my desk– mine was next to a window, hers was in an interior space– by claiming that florescent lights caused brain damage, and that sitting at her desk was making her sick, so I should have to sit there. (I sat at that very desk for a year before she arrived. It was totally fine.) Her argument also included the point that since she was German, she hadn’t been exposed to as many florescent lights as us Americans, and we were already brain damaged, so it wouldn’t hurt me (much).
I’ll take a freezing cold office over crazy colleagues any day.
Communal keys for office bathrooms are only a thing in Hell, right? Not in real life?
@probs No, they’re real. I interned at an office that had communal keys. There was one mens room and one womens room for the floor, and every office had a key or two to each bathroom. It was a total pain, especially if someone accidentally forgot the key in the bathroom and it got locked in there.
@probs They are the WORST. I don’t understand why grown adults need keys to use the restroom.
My office is exactly 77 degrees (25c). I do need a big wrap scarf because it’s wicked hot outside and the summer dresses do not work as well in the a/c. But we also have fluorescent lights and grey industrial carpet. Three out of five.
I worked at a company where they turned down the heat to make people so miserable they’d quit, in fact, they turned OFF the heat after 5 PM in the winter.
They just wanted to cut costs.
A VP didn’t even deny it, they wanted to make people quit so they wouldn’t have to pay a severance.
The dude was worse than Lumberg.