Chilly at Work? A Decades-Old Formula May Be to Blame | Hacker News Reader

Chilly at Work? A Decades-Old Formula May Be to Blame

nytimes.com

35 pointsdonohoe48 comments

At my office, which is business professional, it seems that men have less options for "lighter" clothing than women though. I have to wear a long sleeve, pressed shirt and tie, pants, and dress shoes no matter what the temperature is (although the coat is optional). Women can get away with short skirts and dresses that are much cooler.

This. If we bump the office temperature 5* without adjusting the dress code, I end up sweaty and miserable.

I'm not allowed to wear sandals and a skirt; let me wear shorts and flip-flops and you can set the thermostat wherever you want.

It would make sense, in a lot of ways (money saved, better for the environment), to have people dress properly for the conditions, rather than requiring uniforms that are ill-suited to the climate.

There is also the problem that if you're hot, you can only take off so much cloting, while being appropiate. If you're cold you can always put on a sweatshirt or whatever.

The article states:

" “If it is too warm, the behavior thing you can do is take off a piece of clothing, but you can only do that so much. You could also say let’s keep it a very cold building and women should just wear more clothes.” But his study offers another solution: Change the formula."

But then it completely fails to mention how that solves the problem of men not being able to strip naked in an office.

This feels like a manufactured gender controversy.

IMHE, there tend to be equal numbers of men and women on each side of the thermostat wars. Or, just as often, we are all on one side, with the person in control of the thermostat on the other.

It's not entirely manufactured.

Women have lower skin temperatures, and higher core temperatures. So in lab conditions they feel the cold more.

Tracking down a semi-academic article, it noted that in non-lab conditions, people are well aware of their heat tolerance, and generally wear warm clothes if they're going to be cold.

I'm a guy and I always bring a sweater to work during summer to fight the brutal AC. This isn't a gender thing.

This article seems kind of dumb. It briefly mentions that people who are too warm can only take off so many articles of clothing but then drops it when it's really the most important factor. If you're cold you can put on a sweater or a blanket. If you're too hot you have just have to sweat it out and be miserable.

And the very different impacts of too-hot vs. too-cold on a person's ability to be productive at work are also left out.

considering what our dress code permits and what HR overlooks it is little wonder some women are freezing. When you have half the clothing on another does I would expect you to be cold. Throw in that most of the clothing seems lighter in material usage and it just magnifies the effect.

Simple examples are required shoes, men cannot wear open toe or anything close to what women wear based on fashion. Similar to covering the legs, shorts are out but short skirts pass muster. Its an odd world but it tends to get abused a bit more on the woman's side because most male managers are afraid to say anything and HR only steps in the most egregious examples

But you get to tackle global warming and gender discrimination in one fell swoop!

IMO winning this battle will involve changing culture--

changing what is appropriate to wear to work. If I could wear shorts and a muscle top to work, then i'd say just float with the ambient outside (upto 90f) .

But because some of us have to wear suits and ties. Its really hot, plus stress/exercise etc, it could literally be a health risk for some men.

Compare health risk to inconvenience of wearing more clothes and having a personal heater and it seems clear to me.

I'm not suggesting freezing anyone to death, but its a lot easier to toss on a layer of clothing compared to the alternative. Granted, the article mentions this, it just seems preferential to have an office a bit too cold rather than too hot.

That's something I miss about Italy: less air conditioning. Oregon summers are beautiful - warm, sunny, but low humidity. For people who don't have to be in a suit and tie, there's not really that big a need for AC. And yet, I have a sweater myself for the office.

Do you live in Oregon now because that has definitely not been the case for the past 2 years.

My family and I moved to Bend. Even 35 C here is pretty tolerable if you're not out under the direct sun, because the humidity is so low, and there's often a bit of breeze.

It's kind of interesting - we can turn this into a gender debate, where either the evil men freeze the poor women, or the evil women in their skimpy dresses sweat the poor men.

Or we can assign blame where it's actually due: Zoned temperature control in offices is perfectly possible. Buildings that maintain a decent climate without excessive cooling/heating is possible as well.

But that costs money, and most companies don't want to spend money just to make their workers feel OK. They'll adjust, or so the thinking goes.

I'd suggest we look there, as opposed to telling each other what we're supposed to wear/not to wear.

Wow, extremely fascinating to see this war is happening-- because I'm a part of this war everyday at work, except I'm a male and I'm fighting these wars with males. Particularly, it's a war against thin people (me) vs those who have a lot of fat. I lost the war though, mostly because my adversaries are my higher ups. I now keep sweaters and jackets at work... Even when it's 95 deg outside (temp in our office is set to 65)

Its not just fat. Its metabolism. Lean people who have exercised in the past 24 hours will likely be warmer.

I'd like to point something out that I never see mentioned...

Some common medications make people hotter. Amphetamines, antidepressants, and some narcotic painkillers for example.

I'm a thin male 5'9" 135lbs who is constantly hot even at 72. It's not just a body fat thing. My metabolism rules my temperature.

Wow, this article sort of explains my situation fairly well. For years I use to get around on a bicycle to/from work and school. So, I was exposed to the hot Kansas summers so much so that I can't really tolerate temperatures below 75 F without at least a long sleeve shirt on. Just for the record, I'm biologically male (even though I'm mtf trans). So, you could say I'm on the end of the normal curve of this situation.

Here in NYC, I've always been confused by how offices are sweltering in winter from heating, and freezing in summer from AC -- the thermometer on my desk will easily read 82°F in winter, and 68°F in summer.

But what confuses me even more is how people still dress for the season -- guys are walking around, in the office, in sweaters in the winter, and in shorts and sandals in the summer.

Sometimes I wonder if it's all just psychological...

I had a good laugh. Sadly some people may see this as serious journalism.

Many offices are a little too cold - but this has little to do with gender. Fat, or/and high metabolism ppl can wear tshirts at best but cant run around naked. Lean and slower metabolism ppl can put a sweater on. Heck i even take it off for meeting because dress code.

For the record, im in the sweater category. Now then again offices with temp lower than 70 are a lil crazy.

Very interesting to see this. Our office is 2 men, 2 women and we have this argument constantly. The men are sweating their nads off, the women freezing cold - often simultaneously unless one side temporarily wins by changing the setting without anyone noticing. Our solution is going to be rearranging the office so the men are sat directly under the A/C.

Maybe we should examine the obsolete concept of "professional attire" at non-public-facing parts of the workplace. Is there any proof that wearing a suit makes you more productive? Are profits going to go down if people start showing up to work in shorts, tshirts, and sandals?

Looks like bad science to me:

"the researchers tested 16 women"

But if you don't also test some men in the exact same chamber you know nothing because you have no control to compare to.

You can't just compare to published studied because you don't know if your equipment is properly calibrated.

I live in Scotland and the reverse is the issue here: mostly women with personal space heaters turned up to max to ignore the thermostat (because that means it heats up quicker, right?) which then causes the temperature to rise, they get normalised to the hot temperature and complain about the rest of the building being cold so find extra personal space heaters...

Meanwhile, I'm what's known as a "hot tatty" and melt when I'm wandering around the building, but mostly because our central heating is off because the computerised heating system has decided that the rest of the building is too warm thanks to these personal space heaters throwing megawatts of power away into the ether...

Looks to me like they wrote an entire, serious article just so they could work in the sentence "I wouldn’t overestimate the effect of cleavage, but it’s there."

Which may also explain why the thermostat will end up higher... :)

In this world there's two kind of people: - Those who hate AC. - Those who know how a thermostat works.

To the employers: - Buy AC that are powerful enough for the office room. - Have the office in a well insulated building. - Keep the office at 20°C (68F) in winter and 26°C(80F) in summer. If you can also keep the temperature stable, everybody will be happy.

To everybody: - If you see someone setting the AC at 16°C in summer or 30°C in winter, you are allowed to revoke this person's rights on the remote AC forever.

Naked men and women bundled for the arctic doesnt seem quite right for me. I'm older and like it a little bit warmer, so I sympathize with the ladies. I just add a sweater, but then my girlfriend says that I have the fashion sense of a mule.

Summers are the worst. Often the thermostats are in sun-facing offices, and the worker bees are in a windowless open plan cave. Some poor sod gets to sit under the vent with a chill factor of 40 degrees. My compromise is to telecommute.

As far as I'm aware most thermostats don't really factor in humidity which has a big factor on my comfort. When I'm at home on a relatively mild summer day, my house actually feels uncomfortably warm. When it's blisteringly hot outside my AC goes into overdrive and turns my place into an icebox - even though the temperature is always set the same at 72.

I wonder whether LEED certification, with its energy conservation requirements, has an impact on climate satisfaction. Are the women, on average, more comfortable and the men less?

In any case, I worked in a newly built, open plan, LEED certified building and was surprised by the inconsistency in temperature on the same floor.

What happens to the argument about energy efficiency in winter in cold climates? ;)

Same thing: you should probably be comfortable in a sweater in the office in winter.

Among the many factors in that equation, using a 40 year old male weight 154lbs seems a little off too. Is that actually the median age and weight of office workers these days?

Many designers know that you do not design for the average, but for the edges. The middle figures itself out. So how do we accommodate 200lb guys who weight lifted this morning and 100lb girls who havent exercised in a while? Maybe some kind of climate zones? It usually a lot easier to get warmer (clothes) than to get cooler (less clothes isnt usually appropriate) .

Today, it's more like 40 years old and 254lbs.

Men tend to prefer 70 degrees and women tend to prefer 75. 72.5 sounds like a reasonable compromise.

Sounds like no one is happy then.

Maybe the women could wear warmer clothes?

Or the men could go naked!

What's the alternative? The article reads like the majority of employees are men, making 70 degrees optimal for maximum employee happiness, but "just leave things as they are" doesn't seem to be the solution the article is driving at, either.

That's kind of how compromise works - everybody gives a little. Nobody gets exactly what they want, nobody is completely left out.

70F in Summer? Then, which temperature would you set up in winter?

Or people who like it warmer wear more clothes. I'm a guy and I always bring a sweater or two in the summer because of AC. It's a lot easier for me to warm up by putting on more clothes than for someone warm to cool off by wearing less—which is not a reasonable request at work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com