Then you got the flows*

Air flows, that is. All around my office. (Not that I’m complaining; I’m glad to have a job, and glad to finally be in my office as opposed to Cubicle A1, which was really just a corner of a conference room with one of those cubicle panels bolted to the wall; in case you were wondering, a 5 foot cube panel doesn’t block the sound from the conference room, even a little. But I digress.)

My building was probably constructed around the time I was born. It has that 70’s vibe: brown-tinted windows on the ground floor, narrow corridors, flickering fluorescent lights (think the early scenes of “Joe vs. the Volcano”), and, of course, terribly inefficient climate control. To wit: the building is always freezing. The other morning, I walked in at 6:35 and passed the air conditioning compressor merrily whirring along. Never mind that there was frost on the door handle; discounting the report from the radio that said it was 37 degrees downtown, and that you can always shave a few degrees from that for where we are. So why on earth would we need the air conditioning running?

When it was inaugurated, most of the second floor of our building wing was open space. In the intervening decades, they’ve carved that space up a number of different ways, but never rejiggered the HVAC properly to match the rooms. So the thermostat for our wing sits on the opposite side of the building through three of four walls. But why would even those people want their air conditioner running when it is barely above freezing outside? Well… they’re in the kitchen. The kitchen that fries up countless servings of grease-laden bacon, sausage and eggs every morning to feed the IT horde. This is followed by a hearty selection of lunch items, one of which is always “from the grill”. I’ve craned my neck into the kitchen a few times to see if I can spot the thermostat, but I haven’t located it yet; from the way the cold air blows in my office, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the thermostat is located inside the vent hood for the grill.

But that’s only half the airflow story. Like everyone else in this part of the building, I employ an electric space heater to counter the ever present artificial draft. I also have a large picture window in my office, which produces its own natural draft (it looks over the parking lot and the fenced lot beyond, which is currently packed with earth-moving equipment in various stages of decomposition). So I have the cold air coming down and the warm air coming up. And I’m in the middle, enjoying a nice lukewarm swirling breeze; I try to imagine it as the type of ocean breeze you’d get sitting on a beach as a cool front moves in from the Pacific, but I usually fail.

I’m told that I ain’t seen nothin’ yet, that October is pretty tame compared to January. One guy kept a thermometer at his desk last winter and charted the number of times the temperature dipped below fifty; quite a few ticks on that chart. Nice. So folks crank up their space heaters. Every once in a while, I’m told, the combined load pops a circuit or two and we all go dark. I’m considering bringing in some of those handwarmers that you snap to activate, and strapping them to my wrists to work throughout the day. That, and a big old fireman’s ax to store behind the door, in case the space heaters start an electrical fire that blocks my way to the stairs and I have to chop my way out.

*If you don’t recognize the line that titles this post, bring up this youtube link or google "Bubb Rubb".