mandymag.com

On a day like today a certain KISS song comes to mind “Hot, Hot, HOTTER THAN HELL!”  It is currently 65.3 degrees outside and 78 degrees in my cube.  Ugh! I better get used to the heat because it is early in the season and there are hotter days yet to come. 

I work in ITS at Plymouth State College in Plymouth, NH.  A portion of our department is housed (really stuffed) on the third floor of a building in cubes in windowless offices with currently no working air conditioner.  We went through hell last summer without AC and are starting this summer the same way, with no air venting into our offices.  

The good news is there are a bunch of trucks outside with HVAC written on the side of them, and according to the campus summer construction projects plan, our building’s chiller is getting replaced. This project is a marked as a high priority, so there is hope. 

Last Friday, we smelled burning fumes throughout the office.  That may sound like a bad sign, but to me it was a good sign….if there are vents, and if the burning fumes can get through, then hopefully so can the chilled air when the chiller is fixed!

Now when you envision our management, please wipe the image of Heat Mizer from your heads….

They are really doing everything they can to improve the situation and make it as bearable as possible:

Making the chiller replacement for this building a high priority, I’m certain, it had a great deal to do with our CIO making our miserable voices be heard.  Management has looked the other way when it comes to shorts being worn to the office.  They have been flexible about allowing us to seek out cooler refuge elsewhere on campus.  However, many of us haven’t taken up that option except on the hottest days when there is no other alternative.  It is too hard to work from a laptop or another computer in a lab and be away from our phones, and our own desktops.  Several of us have multiple computers to monitor multiple systems as well as multiple monitors on single system, we can’t really go far that far from our office.  This is the norm in information technology, all in techie’s day of work.

So relocating isn’t as easy as it may seem, unless of course, it was a permanent relocation to some nice building with windows that open and private offices so we wouldn’t have to double and triple up in a space that is made to hold half of its current occupants.  We would also need to have common areas, like conference rooms and a kitchen, with a sink.  A water cooler would be nice as well and a coffee maker.  I’m dreaming I know!

A side note, we have been told that since we do not meet with the public, that we are not entitled to water and coffee but need to purchase our own.  We are a state college, I guess we cannot waste the tax payers/tuition dollars on frivolty like coffee or water for employees who work more than 40 hours a week! However the loss of wages in us having to find our own coffee and water elsewhere, and the loss of productivity having us dehydrated and non-caffeinated daily is not a concern? 

We could relocate to Germany. I’ve heard that it is against the law in Germany to not have a window that opens, for anyone working in an office 40 hours or more a week.  Why can’t we pass that law in the US?

Okay, as you can tell, the heat is making my Scorpion Mediterranean blood boil…  I better calm down before I get myself fired and really have to move away for a job! 

tags: higher education space allocation, hotter than hell, loss of productivity, work space wars

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