Last week, I wrote about the Cold War at our offices and how women are having to take up knitting again in order to fend off the freezing temperatures at work, courtesy of the air-conditioning systems.
It looks like several readers (all of them men, incidentally) are of the opinion that I was being too, erm, negative.
It’s not like our offices are igloos, are they? Think of those people in Greenland who have to kiss each other by rubbing their noses because they cannot uncover their mouths without getting hypothermia. Now that is cold.
And what about Siberia, where even your pee freezes by the time it reaches the toilet ledge? That is freezing, and not an office air conditioner blasting chilled air down our very bones.
You are ‘unpositive’, I was told (we go to great lengths to avoid the n-word these days) and worst of all they said, you did not even come up with any solution to how the matter could be solved. Some gave lengthy narratives of the recent blame-it-on-Sicily blackouts which left them in pools of sweat at their desks. “Is this what you want? Eh? IS THIS?”
Goodness me, I need to make amends and fast. And so it is that I spent this whole week carrying out extensive research to come up with a list of handy ideas to regain a harmonious temperature nirvana for all of us.
How about an app called Comfy? Apparently, its software connects to an office’s existing heating and cooling systems, allowing people to control ambient temperature.
Workers have three options: ‘Warm my space’, ‘Cool my space’, or ‘I’m comfy’. If they click on cooling, they get 10 minutes of air-conditioning. Those yearning for a heat boost get 10 minutes of warmer air.
While all this is going on, the clever app is busy learning the preferences of users, until it starts regulating the climate of the office by itself. Apparently, a company somewhere in the US tried this and all workers are reported to be happy bunnies these days. There’s just a minor drawback – it’s freaky. It makes me think of those movies where computers take over humanity. I don’t want Comfy to take over and boil us/freeze us at our desks, thank you very much.
On to the second option then: Dynamic Glass. A company called View can come to your office and decode every single window with an IP address.
The tint is then changed according to the location of the sun and personal preferences. Good idea in principle but clearly discriminatory if the nearest window to you is three kilometres down your office’s open plan.
Next option is the recently invented Climate Chair, which strategically cools the head and heats the feet – which, according to science, is an effective way to provide individualised thermal comfort.
The lovely, sensual imrewħa is the answer to our prayers
“If you can keep the feet warm, people will not complain,” said the Californian inventor, reckoning without the Maltese gemgem.
In the end, my research took me to Spain, from where I am writing this. As I stuff my face with tapas, in frustration at the lack of solution for the office climate wars, I notice at a distance, a woman, her hair up in a tight bun, sitting on the ledge of a fountain in the square, fanning her face with a beautiful red fan.
Not fan as in the whirry round thing which gives you a robot voice if you go and speak in front of it and which men with a comb-over have to desperately avoid. Fan as in, hand fan. In Maltese, we have a lovely word for it: imrewħa. I love the sound of it, the stress in the ‘imrrr’ concours with the sound of the folded fan flicking abruptly open, while the ending sound of ‘ħa’ evokes the fanned wind happily blowing in your face.
Suddenly, Eureka! (English); ¡Eureka! (Spanish); Illallu! (Maltese). Why look for an answer in fancy technology when you can go back to basics?
The lovely, sensual imrewħa is the answer to our prayers. And Maltese men have their own gadget too, the palju, which is like a mini flag made of a wooden rod with a squarish woven reed mat stuck to it.
The palju is different to the imrewħa, even when it comes to pronunciation. The word is uttered leisurely, denoting the adagio manner in which it is used – arm away from chest, one strong wave, a gust of wind, a pause to enjoy the breeze, then start all over again. To my mind, hand fans are a sign of a particular understanding of the world. A sign of knowing that the world goes swiftly by and we’d do well to enjoy the stillness of the moment.
Fans are almost a language of their own – there’s a kind of dance to communicating while fanning your imrewħa and your palju.
I believe our offices would be better places if we go back to fans. Work frustrations can be easily vented on the spot. You have to work late? Fan, fan, fan and you’re suddenly calmer.
You want to make a point? Close your imrewħa abruptly and point with it. Your boss just asked you to consider an increase in workload? Sit at your desk and contemplate the pros and cons over the palju breeze.
I’m beside myself: this is as unnegative as you can get. All hail the palju.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti