Watch out, ladies.
If things feel a little frosty in your office today, it’s not just because of the photocopier incident at last Friday’s work drinks. We have it on good authority that the air-conditioning units in your office are actually trying to freeze you out.
Just when you thought the war on sexism was over with our very own female bathrooms, skirt suits, and paid maternity leave; we’re being attacked again… but this time through the vents. Your office air-conditioning, specifically.
According to a study by the journal Nature Climate Change, automated air-conditioning temperatures are set according to a whizz-bang formula called FANGERS THERMAL COMFORT EQUATION:
PMV = [0.303e-0.036M + 0.028]{(M – W) – 3.96E-8ƒcl[(tcl + 273)4 – (tr + 273)4] – ƒclhc(tcl – ta) – 3.05[5.73 – 0.007(M – W) – pa] – 0.42[(M – W) – 58.15] – 0.0173M(5.87 – pa) – 0.0014M(34 – ta)}
Ah, yes. But of course.
For those of you not fluent in Mensa-level algebra, the above formula equates to the ideal temperature for a 40-year-old man who weighs around 70kg.
Which, in the 1960s when this formula was developed, was like… everyone. My, what a utopia. Vast offices of tiny, middle-aged men, in short sleeved business shirts, enjoying a temperature created just for them.
But in today’s mad, mad world, there are actually real life women in the workplace, gripping their cashmere cardigans tightly and clutching their pearls as they shiver incessantly due to the air-con temps being set at 35% colder than what is healthy for their bodies.
The study has urged corporations to “reduce gender-discriminating bias in thermal comfort”.