Mid-summer, even bang in the middle of a heat wave, you would not catch me leaving home without a shawl and a jacket. They are my weapons in an ongoing battle at the office.
No, I don’t need the shawl to lasso it and break the glass ceiling; nor do I need the jacket for power dressing. I need them to fight the battle against air conditioning, otherwise known as the New Cold War.
In our office, the women are mostly cold; the men are mostly sweating. Although there are exceptions to the rule: you will find the odd man shivering under the AC and you will equally find the woman who is thrilled by a 16˚C temperature.
As for myself, the minute I step in the frigid office, I become a miserable, shivering bundle, huddled at my desk, with a scarf covering my head and my mouth, a pashmina wrapped around my shoulders and a heater at my feet.
I am not alone. A colleague of mine wears winter thermals under six layers of clothing. Another one cocoons herself in thick woollen shawls. I have been known to tell my news editor: “I’m sorry about all the stylistic mistakes. It’s hard to type with cold, numb fingers”, or “I’m sorry I went over my word count, I cannot think concise when my brain is frozen”.
She empathises, but the war goes on. Which means I keep on wearing tights till the end of June (and it’s most certainly not to make etiquette experts happy). And every morning I face a dilemma: do I sweat during my commute and lunch break or do I turn into an icicle the rest of the time?
Every morning I face a dilemma: do I sweat during my commute and lunch break or do I turn into an icicle the rest of the time?
Many of us end up casualties of war: some of us, hunching over our chairs in an attempt to keep warm end up with chronic back aches; others succumb to sinusitis or worse, bronchitis. Yes, all of us teeth-chattering lot, wallow in misery.
Then last week, out of the blue, Radhika Sanghani, a Guardian columnist, wrote:
“I am freezing cold as I write this article at my desk. I’m wrapped up in a jumper with my legs crossed under me to keep warm, and my sleeves are pulled as far down as they go.
“My two female colleagues are sitting opposite me wearing their jackets, and there’s a stack of emergency desk jumpers in case things get worse.
“The men around us are all pretty much jacket-free. In fact, most of them have their shirt sleeves rolled up and religiously maintain that the temperature is ‘fine’. Welcome to office life, where women battle daily with the air conditioning and men have no idea there’s even a problem.”
I looked up from my screen. Suddenly there was a flicker of light in my cold-dulled eyes. We are not alone! The sisterhood around the world is fighting the very same war. And not only that, but even science has taken the issue up. Hark!
It is not a figment of our imagination or a problem exclusive only to the Times of Malta newsroom. Ladies, gentlemen, the Cold War is real enough. According to a study by Maastricht University out this July, women are suited to an average office temperature about three degrees warmer than men.
Prof. Boris Kingma, who carried out the study, found that women had a significantly lower metabolic rate than men. Men are comfortable at about 22˚C, while women on the other hand, find that a bit chilly and work better at 25˚C.
The root of the problem goes back to the 1960s, when office climate controls were based on the metabolic rate of the average worker: a 40-year-old, 70kg man. Huh.
There’s, therefore, a scientific reason for our near-hypothermia. Women normally have more body fat than men (breasts are fat, for example), which is good at keeping the heat in but isn’t great at generating heat – unlike muscle, which most men have more of. This of course, explains those exceptions I mentioned before: women who flourish in air conditioning have more muscles than us AC-haters. There we have it then, it really is a battle between the muscled and the unmuscled.
Can it ever be solved? Well, not by the employees who will keep playing tug-of-war with the AC remote. But perhaps by the employers, who can be referees.
I would not in any way want to show my bias but a study in 2004 found that people working in warmer conditions – 25˚C up – make fewer typing mistakes and have increased productivity.
Alan Hedge, professor at Cornell’s Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory, who carried out the research, said: “The results of our study also suggest raising the temperature to a more comfortable thermal zone saves employers about €2 per worker, per hour.”
Clearly, although the country’s economy might register a loss in sales of pashminas, it pays to switch those air cons off.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti