Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Every morning, before leaving for office, I pack my survival kit for the corporate jungle – my thick pullover, one shawl and a pair of socks. I would have also added some mufflers and thermal wear if I had them.

Why this extreme bundling up one may ask – is the office on some glacier in some northern fjord? Well, not exactly. The postal address is very much in equatorial heartland of Pune.
But if one walks into it the office, one might be forgiven for thinking one has inadvertently traipsed into Siberia.

The cold that hits you like an electric jolt could be one such hint, not to mention the almost immediate loss of all feeling in all the body’s extremities.
Another could be the vision of people bundled up in mufflers and monkey caps trying to warm their blue-tinged hands on hot-water bottles.
Or the sound of teeth chattering in symphonic accompaniment to the keyboard.
The almost constant taste of the-apology-for-coffee as people swig in gallon-fulls in lieu of more congenial heat-inducing-liquids.
Of perhaps, you might notice the unique not-so-pleasant odour of a mixture of moth-balls and woollens.

Why is our office a prototype for sub-zero Antarctica one might wonder. Well, the very senior management has east –facing cabins with massive windows. They claim that the rooms (and consequently the office) are unbearably hot. Many of them also come to work in woollen suits and safaris.

Did I mention that they are very senior management?

So as people who sit on the west side of the office and don’t have east facing windows or heavy-duty designations and are very accommodating in nature ( I did say very senior management, didn’t I?) , we allow the air conditioner temperature to be set at ‘pleasantly cool’ temperatures.

Maybe lesser flunkies like us do not have the hot-blooded passion that differentiates the well, men from the boys. Hmmm.

Now if you will excuse me, I will go and thaw my frostbitten nose under the hand drier in the washroom.

13 comments:

Mo said...

Someone once told me that the human brain works better at 17 degrees. And that they read it in some article somewhere.

And I think the senior management believes anything that is in print.

Anonymous said...

:D
this was also the case when me joined my office, however we talked and sorted it out :)

Cynic in Wonderland said...

mo - jogging the braincells or something like that eh? from grey to blue probabaly. sighhh

Cynic in Wonderland said...

veens thats been the case in ALL my offices, my last office, we finally revolted. twenty five people decided to spam the admin guys with stinker ac mails every five minutes for a day. that worked...unfortunately, here people seem to think that spamming senior management is tantamount to a career limiting move and all my inflamatory (hmm how can one be inflamed in this cold is a question) dont seem to have any effect.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of spaming the admins mail box ;), i gtta use that one ;)
phew!! even we had a few, who thought opening their damn mouth against a senior personnel is like professional suicide.. and i thought.. keeping your mouth shut is worst than a suicide..;)


you know i like your blog a lot.. i thought i did comment on that before... but unfortunately i didn't.. sorry about that!! you have a pest around, who is going to non-senscically comment on and on..till you are fed up say.. " OK lady thats it.. stop and I am putting in my "spamers list" ;)

Priyanka said...

I finally discovered your blog!! woohooo!! Love it! :)

Cynic in Wonderland said...

veens - do try, its good fun..we had the admin guy almost having apoplexy..most edifying that was. and thank u verr much for the appreciation.. spam away i say! the more the merrier.

Priyanka ..er..*blush*

Anonymous said...

hey PS, kaisa hai? Happy New Year and all. Give me a shout if you feel like a drink sometime ... now that you live just down the road.

SwB

Anonymous said...

Well. Bring in an electric room heater and plug it in your cube. That should fix your problem and the electricity bill should fix the management's problem.

Cynic in Wonderland said...

Good good swb. where u been lurking for so long?


j - maybe i can just start a fire here with the superimportant papers as well. wot say?

Soulmate said...

I can totally relate to this since I am in a similar situation. Perhaps I am the only person on the floor who keeps complaining about the cooling being too much to bear...

Anonymous said...

Hmm.. I was just trying to visualise how somebody will look, while thawing the nose under the hand drier!!

Roop Rai said...

hear hear, p!! :D i had similar working conditions at my work place too. no wonder i'm not working anymore. ;d

very well written as usual. :)