When you’re working in an environment where the temperature is out of your control, it can make each day feel unbearable.
So, what would you do if your boss demanded that you work in 62°F conditions, even in winter?
Would you just bundle up?
Or would you find a clever way to make it more bearable?
In the following story, one apprentice faces this very situation and finds a solution.
Check it out.
Boss wants thermostats set to 62F, I recalibrated them.
When I was an apprentice in the mid-1980s, the drunken owner wanted the shop’s thermostats set to 62F (16.6 C), even in the dead of winter.
It was a long, narrow industrial building with heaters and thermostats at each end.
I worked in the middle, near a door.
Which really was not cool.
And while this may not sound cold, it is when your job requires you to stand still all day.
(I’m sure it was colder in other workplaces, but it doesn’t matter.)
Mysteriously, the office was always 72-75F.
Strange.
Desperate, they figured out how to re-calibrate the thermostat.
So one day, I took the covers off both the thermostats in the shop, figured out how they worked, and “recalibrated” them.
After I was done, they ran about 10 degrees F warmer than indicated. 62F (16.6 C) became 72F (22.2C).
Big improvement.
More than once, I saw him check the thermostat because it wasn’t cold as all get out.
Then he wandered off with a puzzled look on his face.
He NEVER figured it out.
Those must’ve been some uncomfortable shifts before the fix.
Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit relate to this situation.
It can be hard to find a comfortable indoor temperature.
As noted here, some people are always hot, while others are always cold.
Yikes, that’s a cold office.
Here’s someone else who likes it very cold.
What a smart way to solve the problem.
When you’re stuck standing still and there’s a cold draft, even layering up won’t help.
If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.