Office Weather

As a human male in his early twenties, fresh out of college and drowning in debt and greed, I needed to get  a job. Because of my upper middle class white upbringing, the military and manual labor were not options for me. Being a waiter had been fine for a while, but after you are legally obligated to stop hitting on the hostess, it stops being that fun.

So I took to the one thing that a college-educated, articulate, aloof almost-hipster can comfortably do in this country without actually fulfilling his dreams: I became an office worker. I have talked about this job before. But all of those times I was struggling with the moral and psychological implications of this work. What I would like to touch on today is something a little bit more obscure.

It all begins with a basic human desire: Comfort. From the moment man kind first stepped out into the sun and said "Ugh, how about this heat?" we've been looking for a way to beat it. The heat that is, not the sun.

Anyway, we also always look for a way to destroy the cold. That was easier than beating the heat, because we could make fire. The only problem with fire is that it has its own level of intensity that we can't really control. So when we began to harness the intellect that allowed us to build machines, the first thing we looked for was control. So we knew fire was an uncontrollable form of heat, and that cold was hard to maintain during the warm spells. What was the answer?

Air conditioning and furnaces. Complex (maybe, I don't honestly know how they work) systems of ducts and stuff that make hot and cold air flush into a space so that we can maintain a fair constant temperature. Its beautiful.

So what does this have to do with work? Why did I begin talking about the death of dreams and limited options and yet segue into air conditioning?

Because even at work, air conditioning becomes one of a number of things that we simply cannot control.

Its been insanely warm in DC this summer. 100-plus degree days, warm inescapable nights. The world seems to be trying to drive everyone indoors. And yet, when fully 1/3 of my day is spend in my office, I find myself wishing that I could be outside just to even out.

Why?

Because my office is set at a continuous sub-comfort level of frigidity. It puts me in the sometimes uncomfortable position of having to walk into my building on a 90 degree morning while toting a sweater. This is even stranger when the man sharing the elevator with me is dressed in a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, sweating profusely. He gives me a look like I am secretly trying to mess with his mind. What he doesn't understand is that my office seems to think that the only suitable rebuttle to the inferno of summer is the pre-Raphealite hell of endless winter.

And yet today, while shivering and triyng to keep my mind on work, I noticed a strange new weather pattern in my office.

You see, the last two days have been pleasant. 70ish degrees. Sometimes a little bit of a chill in the air. And yet, the sun still shines brightly, and it is still August, technically summer. So what is the extremity-loving A/C in an office to do about this sudden level of non-mechanical comfort?

Its still freezing cold, but every so often there is... prepare yourselves... a burst of hot wind.

Wind. In my office. Warm, burning wind like that which scorges the arid planes of the Gobi desert. My skin is confused. My mind snaps, and suddenly I have to write a blog post for the first time in almost a year.

Jesus.