Science has given us many wonders over the years—Tang, the atom bomb, silicone breasts. Still other discoveries remain, well, undiscovered: a cure for the common cold, prevention of male pattern baldness, the bond between a man and his television remote control.
But yay, hallelujah, science has now come up with an explanation of why women are so cold in the office. According to a recent report published in Nature, researchers have discovered that most office building temps are set to what is called a “thermal comfort model.”
Decades old, it’s a formula that determines the likelihood of people feeling too cool or too warm. Trouble is, this is a formula arrived at in the 1960s, based on a 40-year-old man wearing a suit and weighing 154 pounds.
As a result, your typical office temperature today tops out at about 70 degrees. Researchers, however, have found that females — who take up much more office space today than they did 50 years ago — are more comfortable with temps around 75 degrees.
My question is, what typical man weighs 154 pounds these days — or even wears a suit in today’s casual office, especially in Arizona? I know for a fact that the only man you’re likely to see wearing a suit at the Star — save, perhaps for the publisher — is some guy applying for a job.
Still, even in a newsroom where everyone works in shirtsleeves, it was we women who seemed to be freezing. As a result, most of us kept some sort of well-worn sweater draped around our shoulders in the summer. We called it the Ratty Sweater Club. Never mind that its most prominent member was also one of the Star’s best-dressed reporters. Comfort beats out couture every time.
Another woman in our features section even had a little space heater tucked beneath her desk, presumably to ward off frostbite.
I have no idea how the temperature was controlled back when I worked in the newsroom — or now — but it certainly wasn’t by some sort of readily available thermostat. My hunch is it was remotely controlled at the home office, close to 1,500 miles away.
I first learned such a thing was possible years ago when I was having my hair done at the old Levy’s Department Store. Even draped with the usual shroudlike cover-up, I was freezing. So was the woman doing my hair. “Can we turn up the temperature?” I pleaded.
“If only,” she replied. “It’s controlled in Dallas.” Ah, yes, Dallas, where temps can easily rise above 100 degrees in August and the humidity peaks at 80 percent, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
Beauty-parlor captive that I was, there was little I could do but tough it out. Same thing for movie theaters. Woe unto those who do not drag a sweater in with them, no matter how hot things might be on the screen.
Restaurants are another place where you’re more likely to be too cold, rather than too hot. Sometimes you may be able to switch to a table not directly under an air vent, sometimes not. But chances are, you’ll find little sympathy from the help, who are, naturally, feverish from buzzing around between kitchen and dining room. I have a sneaking suspicion they’re the ones controlling the thermostat.
And lastly, we have the tomb-like temperatures found in your typical supermarket. Savvy summer survivors have learned — wearing jeans and parkas — to sprint across lavalike parking lots toward these ice palaces. Doing otherwise means you’ll never make it past the frozen peas and fish sticks.
Whether office temps will ever rise because of this latest research, however, may depend less on the comfort of female workers and more on what they are laboring over each and every day. According to the Houston Chronicle’s small-business website, office computers do best when the temperature is no more than 72 degrees. Better keep that sweater handy.
