Air-con bullies rule the roost

Today Online 14 Dec 07;

I have a wonderful desk at work, with great views. But there is only one glitch: It's directly below an air-conditioning vent.

The first thing I do when I go in is to turn off the unit to keep the temperature cool enough to be comfortable but warm enough for me not to need a cardigan.

One hour later, my colleague enters and, without asking any of us, lowers the temperature before trotting off to his cubicle three desks away. There, he sits in cool splendour while water starts condensing along the icy vent and sending the rest of us rushing for our coats.

Yes, coats. Mine is a canvas field jacket made to withstand temperatures of 10°C. Another colleague uses a fleece jacket — normally used for skiing. We would use gloves if only they didn't interfere with our typing.

Outside, the sun is so hot it reflects off the neighbouring building but inside, it's a white Christmas — without the goodwill to all men.

We've tried talking to our too-hot-to-handle colleague but it doesn't work. He likes the air-con going at full blast, he says, because "the place is so stuffy" yet, when we offer him one of the "hot seats", he refuses because "the direct blast gives me headaches".

My husband also suffers the same fate as I do. In his office, six people share the same vent. Five of them are happy with temperatures of 25°C but one, however, wants it cranked all the way down to 18°C. It's five against one but guess who gets her way?

She even takes the remote to her desk so that she has full control over the office climate. "It's wonderful when she goes on leave," my husband says wistfully.

Visitors to our country joke that elsewhere, people put their coats on to go out but here, we put them on when we get into office. They can't understand why, with such glorious natural weather, we prefer to enclose ourselves in an artificial cocoon.

An overseas visitor once asked me: "Do you have operas in the daytime?"

"No, why?" I answered, puzzled.

"All the women are wearing shawls."

The World Wildlife Fund, the global conservation organisation, calculates that air-conditioning accounts for 47 per cent of the office electric bill. It suggests setting the thermostat to 25°C, because every degree cooler that you set the temperature raises energy consumption by 10 per cent.

The advice? Encourage staff to dress appropriately for the season. My husband's colleague, for example, loves wearing wool so it's no wonder she feels hot all the time. The problem is, we have a culture that favours the overheated.

Singapore offices are usually kept at a freezing 22 to 23°C. In comparison, the Hong Kong government has decreed a summer temperature of 25.5°C for its offices to save energy, while in Japan, the temperature in some offices can even go up to 28°C. Singapore is, as Nanyang Technological University professor Cherian George so succinctly put it, an air-conditioned nation. So loving the air-con is normal, complaining about the cold is not.

Just look at how modern offices are designed — with everything enclosed in glass to keep the artificial air in. Some even lock all the windows so none of that evil fresh air can sneak in to spoil the purity.

You only have to look at the lovely old office buildings of the '50s and '60s to see how they did it without expensive and environmentally-unfriendly air-cons. My mum remembers going into The Fullerton when it was still a post office and marvelling at how the postal hall, with its high ceilings and huge doors, was so cool with just fans going.

These days, bosses see air-cons as a mark of status. More units means you can afford the high electricity bills, ergo, you must be doing well. No unit at all? Gosh, you must either be really ancient or desperately trying to make ends meet. One day, perhaps, these employers will realise that keeping the temperature down is hitting their bottom line and dictate that the thermostats stay at 25°C. In the meantime, however, the air-con bullies will continue to thrive in Singapore offices.

And the rest of us will just have to stock up on winter wear.

Tabitha Wang wonders why the winter wear shops in Chinatown have closed down, seeing as they were enjoying such a roaring business from Shenton Way folks.