Why not both? Lots of places set the climate control to insanely low values, which is uncomfortable, promotes respiratory diseases und wastes energy.
My office does exactly this, it has the thermostat set as cold as it can, and the sensor is in a cooler and shadier part of our floor (where management sit I believe). The rest of us sit in a glass-paned south-facing death trap that fluctuates between 25°C and 15°C multiple times a day on any sunny days. I work from home most of the time so thank fuck I don't have to experience it during this heatwave.
My company actually realized that an open-plan office with barely controllable AC isn't very attractive in 2026. Now they're looking for a new office so they can get rid of the current one.
Good riddance. The building has a (painted) metal facade so mobile reception is crap and you can hear the espresso machine from every point in the office with perfect clarity.
Our office is chilled like a meat locker meaning lots of us have space heaters under our desks, which in turn make the A/C work harder. It's damn depressing when you're someone who cares about energy conservation, but my joints can't take the cold.
Whereas I would be happy working outside until it's 100* or more.
I just need to change industries.
Too cold is always better than too hot. Period.
Get a hot tea. Put on a sweater. Put on a fucking blanket, I don't care. You can fix being cold. You're just whining.
I can't strip down to my underwear and dunk myself into a cool water bath at work. It's frowned upon.
Exactly. I have been trying to hammer this into peoples heads for years.
its so easy for someone thats cold to throw something over them.
Someone thats hot cant do fuck all but boil in their skin and die.
Also, being moderately too cool is 10000% more comfortable than being even slightly too hot.
As someone that's always cold I generally agree. It is rather annoying freezing my ass off when the thermostat is set to 75° F, but that's what fuzzy socks and hoodies are for.
The people having to work outside hearing both sides complain:
._.
Inside with no A/C is far worse than outside.
-someone who doesn't work outside
I work in a foundry... And I've worked outside. Inside without A/C is far worse.
I forgot how much I hated working in an office. Our desks were directly under the vent, so we'd get blasted with cold air. Sales was off in a corner, where it was too warm for them. No amount of adjusting the thermostat would change their local temperature, but they'd try anyway.
In addition to being climate criminals who should all be stripped of their nice things, people who mandate in-office are often causing personal, physical, suffering.
You needed ceiling fans to help distribute and even out the temperature.
It also depends on individual people. I’m freezing below 76F 24C, my best friend starts sweating if it gets above 68F 20C. His house is set at 66F 19C, and if I go over, I know I have to bring a jacket, and if he comes over to my house he brings a sweat rag.
It also depends on what you're doing. Id I'm going outside and do something (even just going for a walk) I'm gonna start wearing shorts and t-shirt at around 17°C. If I stay inside playing video games and barely move at all i might wrap myself in a comfy blanket or hoodie even a bit above 20°C (especially with open windows and a nice breeze).
I got annoyed the other day at work. I work in the offices of a factory. It's 35 Celsius and a lot of hard working people are working next to large ovens and suffering from high heat. A couple of people on the office Teams channel started with comments like "given the temperature we will be organising some cold drinks and ice creams for the office staff"
I would like to see those people try and spend a day on the production lines in this heat.
Me in my 93°F warehouse in the summer, which is also my 22°warehouse in the winter, for 12 hours a day
I like looking across the warehouse floor everyone is just wearing a long sleeve shirt and steaming.
It makes my throat sore for days and my coworkers set the AC at 16ºC (60 F) working continuously when it's 21ºC (70 F) outside and raining just because it's Summer.
16?! That's simply too cool for an office. Gross. My condolences.
In their mind, if there's a setting for 16ºC then it's supposed to be used.
So, that might be due to your company cheaping out by not having the filters cleaned. Had that problem and as soon as the filters were cleaned, the problem stopped. But yeah, if it's 21 outside, that's a bit mad to keep at 16.
We use less energy for cooling in the summer than for heating in the winter, and it gets worse because the latter is generally less efficient because that does NOT usually use heat pumps, considering heat pumps are more efficient than just heating with electricity directly (it moves more heat energy than you put in electric energy).
So once you have heat pumps capable of heating installed and ready, to make winter heating more efficient, then it's trivial to flip some valves to let them cool, so what dumbass would then refuse to use them in the summer when it uses less energy?
If you're still concerned about the energy use, then install heat capture tech - because both the energy spent and the energy moved becomes heat on the hot side of the pump, you can just extract that heat and store it in for example water for later use, and now the fraction of energy spent on top what you were already going to use is much smaller still.
And that's assuming you weren't already powering it with solar.
I would install a heat pump if I could afford it (and wasn't renting). Unfortunately I have to make-do with a portable ac that's not powerful enough for my living room.
Why is it difficult to get it? It’s inconvenient for them. Do you think people need to consult everyone else in the world and make sure that their own personal problem is the worst ever experienced by any human, before being allowed to feel uncomfortable?
For real. There are starving children in America. Someone always has it worse
I don't complaint about the AC in the office, I just shiver quietly under a blanket.
Thank you.
you can always add more layers, if I take off any more layers it's an uncomfortable chat with HR while I clear my desk and get escorted out lol
With a fan pointed directly at me, I don't need AC when it's 30 degrees inside. A fan per employee would be more efficient than AC, and the world is literally on fire due to our energy consumption.
Even worse than people who just have the AC on when it's not needed (and OK, not everyone is as tolerant to warm temperatures as I am - though I note that I always thought I felt the heat more than most, until I lived in a warm flat and just got used to it) is people who insist on sticking to an extremely low AC temperature.
Everyone can deal with an indoor temperature of 25C, that's literally unproblematic. If you set your AC to below 25 for more than a few days, it's not even for comfort, it's because of ignorance or obstinacy.
Big pet peeve of mine. If you think it's chilly you can put on some clothes, if I run hot and think it's hot HR frowns upon me removing my clothes.
Reminds me of a workplace story a friend of mine told me years ago:
On the desk opposite of her there was a colleague who insisted on wearing open shoes without socks to work every day. Due to proper AC that was a bit chilly at the feet so she brought a noisy space heater to warm her feet. And when other people complained about the noise she was shocked about how people could be so selfish and demand that she has to freeze. Could not see any other way out of that dilemma.
I've been in both — kind of, sort of. At least if it's too cold, you can bundle up (despite how stupid that is). But when one of your coworkers doesn't want it on, and you're then cooking to death... yeah, that's not fun. Same with idiots in public transit who don't let you crack the window open to let air in, because "it's cold/blowing at my head!!". Bitch, go sit somewhere else then or take a taxi.
30 degrees is below freezing!
You’re right!
~~30 degrees kelvin = -243.15 Celsius~~
30 kelvinses = -243.15 Celsius
Kelvin is an absolute scale, so it's not degrees, just Kelvin.
Lord Kelvin approves
Celsius. That would be 86°F.
That's the joke, champ.
It isn't very funny. (Sorry if my German is showing)
But your reply did make me laugh.
To be fair it was hard to tell if they were joking or just being American. I missed it too.
I have nothing to contribute, but I wanted to complain about my coworkers. They under dress for how chilly the office is kept (76F, which really isn’t chilly) then they blast personal space heaters in their offices while the AC is on. I think it would be fine keeping it on 78 if we had ceiling fans, but for whatever reason I never see those in offices
then they blast personal space heaters in their offices while the AC is on.
Okay, that's more than just mildly irritating. That's massively irritating.
What if they're dressed in a manner of which so they don't have to change when they go back outside?
That still doesn't excuse that level of wastefulness whatsoever. Oh no, a mild inconvenience!
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