Tuesday, December 14, 2010

S-s-soooo Cold

I don’t think you understand how cold it is in my office. I work with a group of Europeans, and I blame them. (Naturally). They are used to these Arctic temperatures. I’m pretty sure they thrive in it. They’re born with labels that say “Performs best at 20 to 40 degrees. For maximum performance, place in sub-zero winds.”

But me? No sir. It slips below 60 and I’m all “Where’s my footie pajamas? No not the blue ones…the red ones. Thanks. Please pass the down comforter. And turn up that space heater. No no, the one on the left. Hold my gloves while I open this thermos of hot chocolate”

I hate being cold. Rawr. I’m all for a productive work environment, and I understand that warmth leads to sleepiness. But there has GOT to be a happy medium between alert workers and hypothermia.

Let me just give you a quick glimpse into a typical Monday: Our building is Energy Star certified. I don’t know what that entails. There’s a plaque that hangs (crookedly, oh my gosh) on the wall in the lobby that tells us this. What I realized it means is “turns off heat on the weekends”. Definitely plaque-worthy.
Anyways, so on any given Monday in the winter months, the temperature in the building is hovering in between “snot icicles” and “death”. So I go to my desk and start to work. I put an extra sweater on. I chug my coffee. I put my coat back on. I put another sweater over my lap, like a blanket. I put on my fingerless gloves. By now, I’m looking less like an employee and more like a homeless person.

At a certain point (somewhere between “I can’t feel my fingers” and “We did everything we could to save your nose, ma’am. The frostbite was just too extreme. I’m sorry”) I go from miserably working in an Arctic environment to flat-out survival mode. Fetal position under my desk. Umbrella open and used as a wind shield to block the blasts of cold air that assault me from the main walkway. Licking Chick-fil-a sauce packets for sustenance. Don’t worry, I have about 30 of those in my desk drawer, so rationing is not necessary. Yet. Laptop cradled in my lap; my only source of warmth.

All this, and yet they still think a Company Snuggie idea is “unprofessional”.  I think they’re starting to warm up to it though (Do you see what I did there?). Come on now, would you rather have me huddled under my desk or happily working with full mobility in a Snuggie with our company logo slapped on it? That’s golden. The epitome of business in the front, party in the back. It’s the perfect solution to this problem.

No comments: