...beneath these tragic waves
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I'm underrated (again!)
Nov 27, 2001

Two updates in as many days. Be afraid!

I've gone through a certain scenario at work a number of times in the last year, which (regretfully) has no end in sight, that I can see. I have a boss who is very hard to please, temperature wise, and is always messing with the heating and/or cooling. Most people who operate such devices have, as you might guess, some hint of sanity, at least when it comes to the controlling of the thermostat (it's not a responsibility given lightly). This man does not.

Personally, when I find myself hot/cold, I go and lower/raise the temperature a few degrees, and consider the matter settled, because it gets the job done, given it takes whole three minutes or so. But there are some of us who just can't be bothered to take the time with such lengthy bits of work, nor the delay between temperature changes.

What this boss does is mosey on into my office, which contains the control to my office and the hall (which he is in 5 minutes of the day, but Heaven forbid it not be the "optimal" feel), and just slap the control over. He's one of those hot in the winter, cold in the summer freaks, which is what leads to the above mentioned scenario.

In the winter, he'll come in before I get to work, and slap it over, never noticing nor caring that he has just put the temperature on 50 degrees. So guess what happens? It's cold outside, it's cold inside, it's cold in the pipes. The pipes do their thing, and then they do someone else's thing (though they do this more than not, of late) and freeze over. And I'm not talking about the "I just took my mug out of the freezer" frost. I'm talking sheets of quite solid ice. So when either a co-worker or myself gets a bit nippy (as we aren't snowmen), we walk in say "what the hell?" when we see the number it's on, and put it back to an acceptable level. That's when the pipes unfreeze and cause the WHOLE place to have leaks in the ceiling. I used to get blamed wrongly and made to dry it up (not unlike when I was wrongly made go to a certain class), but no longer. We also often have to call the guy who works on stuff like that. The thermostat guy I guess he is called. Well, I doubt it but that's the best I can come up with.

When I pointed out the cause (despite not being a trained thermostat guy myself, they finally submitted to listening) of the problem, no one seemed as stupefied as I constantly am by it. They're all just used to it, despite the fact I've known the guy longer than all but one of them and am not even close. I suppose I just need to accept that when this guy is coming, common sense has long since taken a taxi to the airport.

So I show up to work from class the other day and I find a ladder in my doorway, which I almost bumped out of the way...glad I didn't as I noticed a pair of shoes (which I soon found had feet in them, which were also connected to other body parts owned by a thermostat guy) on the "do not stand here" step. I know instantly what is going on, and I'm rather glad I'm bundled up and wearing a jacket with a hood on it. Not much happened here, though, exciting as such an event may sound. The guy pulled out ice the size of a small iceberg, which he tossed outside causing not even a small chunk to break off of it. He did more stuff. He left. It's what happened after that which perplexes me.

Everyone in the office knowing the reason, the boss rolls up in my office anyway and says "I'm a bit chilly, let's turn the heat up". That's a first, I thought to myself. I look back and see him actually looking at the numbers to put in on a decent level, and he leaves after about a minute. Yet not a minute more is it when I notice it's getting a tad toasty, but I pay it little mind until the hairs on my arm combusted and caught the make-believe Chia Pet I have on my desk alight. The man had turned the heat up to NINETY degrees. Ninety! All that time to look at the numbers and all he had to do was slap it like he normally does, only do it in a different direction (which I guess is what threw him off).

From this situation I have concluded (though I don't know when and how it came about; likely I was just concluding things in the fantasy world I live in where I make money enough to do things besides only pay bills...ah to dream) that a person like this has no right to be in charge of people and dishing out paychecks (kind of how all but one of my teachers have no right to be teaching). I need to propose that I be in charge and he be the lackey. I mean, sure I can't program (and don't desire to) and don't know anything about business, but I'm convinced those are trivial matters when it comes to temperature control mastery.

devolve | evolve

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