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.
Be careful what you wish for.
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.
Freezing at 75? Damn, I get uncomfortably warm at ~70.
Dude my hands and feet and nose and ears are goin fuckin numb. It’s awful.
Jeez, that sounds like it’d be awful. It’s none of my business but hopefully your circulation etc is OK.
The people having to work outside hearing both sides complain:
._.
Inside with no A/C is far worse than outside.
Disagree, as long as the temps are the same. Sun exposure/UV will sap all the energy out of you and outside work is usually going to be more physically strenuous than whatever you’re doing inside
Yeah but the temps never are the same are they? The sun heats the building and unless you’ve got a fan the entire shift, you have no airflow. Agreed on the UV part tho.
Edit: Lol about the more physical/strenuous part tho.
If the blinds are closed and there’s half decent insulation, and maybe a fan for some airflow, inside can be much nicer.
Offices generally don’t have this though, unfortunately
Warehouses and newer factories are often sheet metal buildings with no insulation and maybe a vent fan by the peak. You often get industrial blowers on the floor but it’s still pushing triple digit air at you.
Offices also usually have computers and other things adding a not insignificant amount to that heat.
I don’t experience that personally. I find the constant AC blowing on me fucks me up. Being out in the hot sun feels great. Maybe I’m a reptile…
Still depends. The air usually is better outside as it can get pretty stuffy inside quickly.
Some buildings trap heat and can actually be hotter than outside, with no airflow and often the humidity of dozens of sweating humans.
Yes, outdoor labor is strenuous and working in the sun is draining. But at least the air moves (usually)
-someone who doesn’t work outside
I work in a foundry… And I’ve worked outside. Inside without A/C is far worse.
You’ve got to understand that a foundry is probably the most extreme form of “worked inside,” right? I don’t think its the lack of aircon making you toasty lol
Right but I have also worked at other factories as well that didn’t have AC as well. Before this job, I’d never stayed anywhere more than 2 1/2 years. My ADHD gets bored and tired of people too easily lol so I’ve had a lot of random experience. I’ve even worked an air conditioned desk job for a while, absolutely hated it.
Hmm, foundry. Alright, I’ll take your word for it. Thats gotta suck.
It does, but the pay and benefits are too good.
I did both yesterday. It’s not.
Depends on the building. Steel reinforced concrete is brutal in summer, even with some airflow. Brick buildings that were well designed are a lot better.
Honestly it’d be nice if we could get some solar panels up and shade the roof at the very least.
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.
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.
One would consider to switch desk?
Or just a piece of cardboard, like had been used for decades.
A fan would actually solve the problem. But that requires some official decision trying to improve people’s life.
How would a fan solve the issue?
By avoiding one place being too cold while another is too hot.
You do realize the HVAC systems have fans in them right? The problem is these people were complaining that part of the fan blew on them because they were underneath the vent. A fan is not going to solve an issue like that because the fans radiate out and the fins radiate out including down. So in a normal office situation like this you just stick a piece of cardboard up over your desk and it directs the airflow away from your desk very easily. A fan ain’t going to do shit.
Yeah, noticed the problem with relying on the HVAC’s internal fans to do local air circulation?
you just stick a piece of cardboard up over your desk and it directs the airflow away from your desk very easily
Into some other place with people too. And certainly not into the hot island, because if the air could easily reach there it wouldn’t be a hot island.
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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.
If I get much over 72°F I start dying, will be comfortable down to about 65°F and then it’s creeping into too cold.
Crazy how humans be like that.
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).
You should buy them some fun headbands as a gift! I’m in the colder sample set and I wear headbands all the time. So does my son. They’re super functional.
nothing compares to working in 112°F under a blazing sun with 75% humidity, zero cloud cover and zero wind.
did I mention you’re doing this for 10-12 hours a day while performing complex geometry and handling tools that can cut off your fingers, arms, or legs?
all while the boss is driving site to site in a blast freezer on wheels bitching about why it takes too god damn long to put up some walls or sheet the walls/roof.
sometimes I miss it, most the time I want to forget it.
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
What makes me sad is that when I was young, I was always one of the people that felt too hot, and now I have turned into one of those old office ladies that are always cold. I have lived long enough to become the villain.
still am, but I moved to a place without AC and still am warm most of the time. good luck!
I talked them into a convertble standing desk, when I get cold, I stand up. It’s good fo the circulation and once i get tired of standing and i’m warm, i sit back down.
Seems like a no-brainer. You can put on any amount of clothing if the office is too cold, but there’s only so much you can take off if it’s too hot. Even on casual Friday - found that out the hard way.
Not much that clothing can do when the air is excessively dry due to excessive air conditioning, also not much it helps against headache inducing constant air flow.
Hot office suck, a/c sucks. I am lucky we have a heat exchanger ceiling in the office and it is set to comfortable temperatures not fridge settings. I necer quite understood why some seem to insidt a room hast to be colder in summer than in winter.
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
There are obese children in America. If they’re starving, their parents are doing it on purpose.
In the 80s when there was a famine in Africa and children were shown with bloated intestines on TV, there were people claiming that they were just fat.
When I look at obese American children, they’re obviously not starving, but I think the issue is the same: Poverty.
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.
I’m in the same boat and it really is a predicament. The winter is significantly better but sometimes it’s so cold that if I don’t work harder my fingers and feet start hurting. Then oops I worked too hard and now I’m sweating which is making my feet even colder.
Yeah, I prefer winter(except for when the docks get icey and my forklift can’t get traction), because i can always bundle up for it, it’s like working in a cooler or freezer.
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.
Ah yes, the workplace version of “it’s not cheating if they put it in the game!”
That’s idiotic.
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.
If it’s 21 C / 70 F outside, just leave all A/C and heating off. You don’t need them.
maybe just maybe, the AC also shouldn’t be on 24/7 at max powrr, that might skew the need of filter changes to way more faster than the recommended one in the manual because who in their right mind would expect someone to max the AC all the time
In our office building the A/C is on 24/7 at the lowest setting only in the server rooms. The rest of the offices depend on people’s preferences. I think they change filters once every two years which isn’t frequent enough.
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.
Heat pumps mentioned, Technology Connections fan spotted
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.
Huh, I’ve never been in public transportation where opening a window was an option. All the trains and public buses I’ve been on (in the U.S.) have windows that are permanently shut.
It depends. On all our old and new tram models the upper part of the window can be cracked open. Not fully, just enough for the breeze and fresh air to get in. Buses have fixed windows that can’t be opened. Trains — at least in my home country — vary: old ones you can usually slide the entire window open in the hallway(?), but the cabins, IIRC, have the same mechanism like the trams; new ones have fixed windows, IIRC, but they are also air-conditioned, so it’s not a problem.
Here’s an example of an older tram. In some the window can be cracked open just a little bit, though.
Interesting. I’ve never ridden in a tram, they don’t exist in the parts of the country I’ve lived in.
