hot town, summer in the city....
Having laughed at the British habit of talking about the weather at every opportunity.... I'm going to talk about the weather.
It was pretty hot when I woke up this morning. We'd had some thundery showers overnight, but they had failed to break the humidity. This being England, we've still got the full duvet on the bed, so I was quite pleased to get up and have a shower to cool off and get ready for work. I got into the office early today as I had a massive pile of things that I needed to do, and a diary full of workshops and meetings that were going to prevent me actually getting anything done. I walked into the building and made my way to my desk. By the time I got there, sweat was beading on my forehead - it was scorchingly hot. I think they must have tried to save a few quid over the weekend by turning off the air-conditioning over the weekend, only switching it back on first thing on Monday morning.
Mmmmm. Nice.
Anyway. I carried on with my day, managing to find the time to slip out of the office at lunchtime for a run. This can be something of a tricky business: running obviously makes your core body temperature rise. I have discovered that if I don't take enough time after I get back to cool off in a cold shower, then I will get dressed back into my work clothes and find myself sweating furiously as my body desperately attempts to cool down. Not a good look if you have to hurry off to a meeting and you are wearing a dark blue shirt.... and obviously things are just that little bit worse if you go running on a hot day.
....and it was hot today. I was actually delighted when it started to pour with rain when I was running because it made the temperature drop by a few degrees. Apparently not by enough though. I had a long cold shower, but the ambient temperature in the office meant that it must have taken me about three hours to start to cool down properly. Things just got worse at about 5pm when the air conditioning in the office appeared to shut down completely. By the time I left work at about 8pm, I was gasping for a nice cold beer and a shower.
Being in the office for 12 hours is rubbish enough at the best of times - surely it's not too much to hope that they might make the working environment as pleasant as possible?
Oh. Perhaps it is.
Work? Proper bobbins (especially during a World Cup).
It was pretty hot when I woke up this morning. We'd had some thundery showers overnight, but they had failed to break the humidity. This being England, we've still got the full duvet on the bed, so I was quite pleased to get up and have a shower to cool off and get ready for work. I got into the office early today as I had a massive pile of things that I needed to do, and a diary full of workshops and meetings that were going to prevent me actually getting anything done. I walked into the building and made my way to my desk. By the time I got there, sweat was beading on my forehead - it was scorchingly hot. I think they must have tried to save a few quid over the weekend by turning off the air-conditioning over the weekend, only switching it back on first thing on Monday morning.
Mmmmm. Nice.
Anyway. I carried on with my day, managing to find the time to slip out of the office at lunchtime for a run. This can be something of a tricky business: running obviously makes your core body temperature rise. I have discovered that if I don't take enough time after I get back to cool off in a cold shower, then I will get dressed back into my work clothes and find myself sweating furiously as my body desperately attempts to cool down. Not a good look if you have to hurry off to a meeting and you are wearing a dark blue shirt.... and obviously things are just that little bit worse if you go running on a hot day.
....and it was hot today. I was actually delighted when it started to pour with rain when I was running because it made the temperature drop by a few degrees. Apparently not by enough though. I had a long cold shower, but the ambient temperature in the office meant that it must have taken me about three hours to start to cool down properly. Things just got worse at about 5pm when the air conditioning in the office appeared to shut down completely. By the time I left work at about 8pm, I was gasping for a nice cold beer and a shower.
Being in the office for 12 hours is rubbish enough at the best of times - surely it's not too much to hope that they might make the working environment as pleasant as possible?
Oh. Perhaps it is.
Work? Proper bobbins (especially during a World Cup).
posted by swisslet @ 20:38
10 Comments:
At 9:50 pm,
Stef said…
"By the time I left work at about 8pm, I was gasping for a nice cold beer and a shower"
I was gasping for a beer by 10am! A couple of years ago I was workign in an office in Birmingham with no air-con. We had all our meetings in the Bacchus bar, an underground haunt with air-con, chilled wine and suits of armour hanging around randomly.
At 10:38 pm,
LB said…
I have been sitting at home all day and that was categorically no better. I ended up opening the back door to try and get some air in and even left it over when the heavens opened, even though my kitchen was under an inch of water...!
I like "working from home" during the World Cup. There'll be lots of that going on.
At 11:51 pm,
adem said…
Hey! You nicked my post title from yesterday.....but I forgive you.
I cycled to work in shorts and t-shirt and had my change of clothes in my bag, but it was so hot that I didn't even get changed, and just lolled around in my flipflops. Great.
At 12:02 am,
swisslet said…
adem - so I did. Sorry about that mate. I nearly used the next line too, but I decided I'm cryptic far too often here.
lord b - working from home? I bloody wish.
stef - random suits of armour? eh?
ST
At 12:26 am,
Del said…
It was very warm all over today. The air con at work was fine, but I decided it was the ideal day to walk home. Well done Mr Smartypants. I nearly passed out from lack of fluids.
Lucky I live in a bunker which is always lovely and cool, what with the lack of windows and contact with the rest of the world...
At 2:13 am,
Hyde said…
Yuck! I hate the heat and humidity! Luckily, we've been having a rainy cool summer so far. Hope I'm still saying the same in August!
:)
love,
h
At 4:41 am,
Anonymous said…
Its hot and humid here...but that just gives me the excuse to whack up the AC all the way...all day when I'm at home.
Its even worse in the office. the thing is stuck on full blast and it gets so cold I keep a jacket at my desk
and if you think work during the World Cup is hard in Europe....you should try coming into the office the morning after watching games at 21:00, 00:00, and then 03:00....
bobbins? more like cock
I'm going back under my desk (with me coat) to sleep
At 11:19 am,
Me said…
I have the same World Cup timings as anonymous. Not pleasant.
I also have temperatures of 30 degrees just about every day. Being English, of course, I take great pleasure in fussing about it every day.
At 4:57 pm,
HistoryGeek said…
I hope you get hazard pay for days like that.
Actually, one part of the building I'm in has the AC shutdown regularly because of the risk of contamination of circulating air during procedures. When we have to meet over there with pts, it's just awful.
At 6:32 pm,
Mandy said…
It's "only" getting up to 95 degrees here today (35 for you celsius folks). It was over 100 degrees all weekend. I hate Texas!
Post a Comment
<< Home