Researchers: The Thermostat In Your Office May Be Sexist

sciencehabit writes: If you're constantly bundling up against your office building's air conditioning, blame Povl Ole Fanger. In the 1960s, this Danish scientist developed a model, still used in many office buildings around the world, which predicts comfortable indoor temperatures for the average worker. The problem? The average office worker in the 1960s was a 40-year-old man sporting a three-piece suit. But fear not, those for whom the 'work sweater' has become a mandatory addition to office attire: Researchers say they have built a better model.

Comments

Peh

[Mashiki]

Sounds more like "slashdot is shilling for clickbait." In other news, users continue to flee slashdot in droves, DICE perplexed as to why site is becoming massively unprofitable.

Re:Peh

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as I saw the article in the Firehose, I knew they wouldn't be able to resist the SJW's siren call and it'd end up on SJWdot.

Honestly the biggest issue I have with modern Slashdot is the contempt you can feel from the editors for the readers. The editors aren't members of the Slashdot community. They clearly hate the community. See beta and the polls being moved to the main timeline. See the endless parade of stupid SJW articles like this one. See the lack of actual news for nerds - things like Comic-Con go entirely unreported. Old Slashdot almost certainly would have mentioned the Pixels movie, new Slashdot probably only will once they realize the SJWs are up in arms about how "sexist" it is for only starring male gamers or something. I'm not a big anime fan but I honestly miss Slashdot reporting on anime because when it did I knew that it really was news for nerds and not just some dumb "business tech site" like it clearly wants to be these days.

Re:Peh

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed, calling this "sexist" just devalues the word. It's based on old data and demographics have changed, that's all. Only a refusal to acknowledge that and act on it might be considered sexist.

Re:Peh

[beelsebob]

It's not really old data, it's just that the modern author hasn't considered the practicalities of the situation.

Offices *still* have 40 year old men (and 20 year old ones, and 50 year old ones) in them, it just happens they have a bunch of women too. Those men can not remove clothes to become cooler without incurring the wrath of HR (quite rightly). Those women can add clothes to solve being too cold. Simply averaging the temperature people want the office to be set to does not make everyone comfortable, it just makes a bunch of mean sweaty and sleepy, with no way to correct for it.

Re:Peh

[gbjbaanb]

the other practicality is that if its set too warm, there will be more post-lunch snoozing than there would be if you keep the place frosty.

Forget comfort, its all about productivity!

Re:Peh

[jafiwam]

It's probably that the comments offer nothing of value, having become the bastion of old white hateful assholes.

Not point in visiting a news aggregator site where the user contributed content repels more than half your target audience.

But keep being a prick and lamenting the fall of /. , by all means.

See, the thing is, if you don't call someone an asshole for no reason all the time, they have somewhere to fall.

Once you do, being an asshole has no cost. I already am one. I am white, middle age, have a job, never been on welfare, never sucked another man's dick, never smoked crack, and never went to a hip-hop rave, I am not a fat ghetto hog with more children than rooms in my section 8 apartment.

I have NOTHING TO LOSE by being a asshole to some twat that comes oozing menstral thoughts onto slashdot berating me for being too white or too manly (a very preposterous thought on a NERD SITE.)

I am an asshole by what I AM by my very NATURE according to you twats.

Combine that with a steady stream of the same old shit as other sites, the same logic contorting and logic violating reasons for posting stupid stories about shit the productive audience (you don't count in that) doesn't want to discuss.

What you SJWs don't understand is left alone, the discussion gets intellectual and interesting and stays out of those concepts you don't like. At which time, you can participate in that culture too. We USED to have some cool discussions here 10 years ago. Here, nobody knows who the fuck you are, no avatar, no required sig, no required USERNAME for fucks-sake it's impossible to not be hiding if you just ignore it. If someone thinks you are a butch-assed female, is because you stated such. Lastly, Slashdot will ultimately fail at the new media ideals as other sites are better suited and populated for it. Ultimately slashdot will fail.

Nobody has any reason not to engage in stupid squabble fights and get out artistic haiku about your cunt anymore. That's the only entertainment that happens here now.

So your complaint with this place is YOU.

Fuck off.

Re:Peh

[serviscope_minor]

Those women can add clothes to solve being too cold.

Clothes doesn't help after a point. If it's too cold, one's fingers can get cold, stiff and uncoordinated and that makes it harder to type. Ignoring the fact that women have lower peripheral circulation than men on average exacerbating the problem, I personally find that at my ideal comfortable temperature for working in indoor winter clothes (i.e. long trousers, t-shirt) it's in fact too cold for me to type with 100% comfort. I find that I'm something like the woman in this one: http://dilbert.com/strip/2005-...

But yes, it makes sense to go for the coldest temperature that people can tolerate given normal office attire. Sadly for me, fingerless gloves aren't normal office attire, so that temperature is above my ideal level.

Re:Peh

[Ol Olsoc]

It's not really old data, it's just that the modern author hasn't considered the practicalities of the situation.

Offices *still* have 40 year old men (and 20 year old ones, and 50 year old ones) in them, it just happens they have a bunch of women too.

So how do we manages this so as not to be a part of the Patriarchy and it's incessant microagressions?

Do we adjust the temperature to suit the one lady in my office who likes it at 80 degrees?

Do we adjust it to another lady who likes it at 68 degrees?

Or how about the one who likes it the way it's set now? Is she a dupe of the male dominated hegemony, and a traitor to her sisters?

Even if my personal experience of a slim majority of women preferring temperatures higher than what I like, calling the temp settings sexist merely shows the lengths that people will go to when they want to feel oppressed.

I'm envisioning Big Red freaking out about a one degree too low thermostat setting, and how little girls are set up for a lifetime of subservience and disappointment when they notice the thermostat at home is set up as the patriarch demands it.

So - can you tell a persons gender by the temperature thay are most comfortable? tl;dr version. This is bullshit - non gender biased human entities happen to have different temperatures at which they are most comfortable.

Re:Peh

[Ol Olsoc]

It seems like every other post lately has someone raving about clickbaiting and users leaving the site

That's very true, though in this case, the article is particularly stupid, or at least referring to the air temperature as "sexist".

Just don't let the Weather Channel find out about this - I can hear it now......

"As the cold front approaches, the temperatures will be dropping into the sexist region, and we're expecting it getting to patriarchy level by tomorrow morning. So bundle up ladies, the microagression index is off the charts tonight!"

Re:Peh

[Ryanrule]

t shirt is not indoor winter clothes.

Re:Peh

[stdarg]

What SJWs don't understand, along with many other people is your post which seems to be a long, angry undirected rant at I'm not sure what precisely.

It's directed at the person who said, "It's probably that the comments offer nothing of value, having become the bastion of old white hateful assholes." Clearly an anti-white racist who deservedly got smacked down.

Now do you understand, or at least see who/what the post was directed at?

Proposed solution is more sexist

[Noughmad]

Since TFS doesn't say, the old model says 21C is the best, while the "new" model says 24C is the best. The problem is, of course, that one can wear a sweater in colder temperatures, but it's difficult (or inappropriate) to cope with higher temperature.

As a young fat (by European standards, not American) male in a job with no format attire requirement, I usually wear a t-shirt and shorts in the summer, so there's not much left to take off. I'm still more comfortable at lower temperatures (22-23). I actually like wearing a hoodie, but I never do at the office because it's too hot there.

And no, opening a window (as suggested in TFA) is not a solution when there's 30 degrees outside.

Re:Proposed solution is more sexist

[ruir]

Fortunately I have an office for myself. 15 no less, still comfortable until it reaches 19. When I do visit the communal areas, at 25 I cannot really stay there for long.

Re:Proposed solution is more sexist

[Gadget_Guy]

That's just what I came here to say. I walk around in the absolute minimum amount of clothes, and yet am still forced out of the office sometimes when someone goes into the meeting room and cranks up the controls. When I have to stay in the office during those times, I have to fight the urge to fall asleep. Today, the air-con stopped working and we all froze; but the productivity didn't fall because of it.

I still can't figure out why people feel the need to be warmer inside when it is cold outside. I don't dare warm clothes in the winter when going to work, because I know that I will burn up when I get inside. Instead, I wear layers of clothes, with my summer clothes underneath for when I am at work. Don't people know how thermostats work? You don't need to give hints to make it warmer by turning up the dial; if the cold outside has made the temperature go down in the building then the temperature controls will keep heating until it goes back up. It's not like it goes into overdrive and heat faster just because you push it to the max.

Finally, who actually thinks that people set temperature controls based on studies done in the 1960s? More often it will just be set on what seems reasonable by the person who operates the controls.

Re:Proposed solution is more sexist

[arglebargle_xiv]

Been there, done that. Move to the server room until the noise drives you out, then move back in again when the heat in the rest of the office gets too much.

Re:Proposed solution is more sexist

[argStyopa]

Not to mention that there's ample research suggesting that people are more active, alert, and productive at cooler temperatures compared to warmer.

Finally, while they certainly had electric typewriters, I doubt that the 1960s office had anywhere near the 'typical' warming-load of multiple 100+W heaters (computer, monitor, maybe printer, etc) at nearly every desk.

I/m a real man

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a real man. I work outside doing manly work. All you pussies in your offices need to grow a pair and come outdoors.

Whining about how your little cubicle isn't just how you like it is not MANLY !

Come outdoors and meet the men's men !

Go ahead, blame the machine.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It is the people who control the thermostats, and you call the thermostat sexist? Next you would blame the guns for shooting deaths and not the triggermen/triggerwomen.

Anyway, at temperatures below 28 deg c, simple fans can make people feel a couple of degrees cooler. Most offices do not permit space heaters, but I find people sneaking it in anyway, but small personal fans are usually permitted. I have always depended on these personal fans to control the micro climate of my personal work space. Can be used to deflect the air from the vent away sometimes, towards me other times, towards the office door to encourage circulation...

Re:Men and women are the same

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is implying that women need different temperatures. It is sexist.

Article implying that someone wearing a wool coat over a woolen vest over a long sleeve shirt over an undershirt prefers a lower temperature than someone wearing a thigh-length skirt and bare shoulders seems to be articulating basic thermodynamics. Clearly the solution is to popularize "basketball uniform" as masculine business costume, so we can all be comfortable at 24 oC.

Re:Men and women are the same

[Rockoon]

Clearly the solution is to popularize "basketball uniform" as masculine business costume, so we can all be comfortable at 24 oC.

At 24C I'm not even comfortable naked and I'm pretty sure that nobody else would be comfortable with me being naked either.

My work area is set to 75f, and I am sweltering

[Hasaf]

As many have said, part of the problem is the acceptable business attire differences for men and women. The women where I work typically wear a thin shirt and a pair of shorts or skirt. Footwear is a pair of sandals.

For men acceptable attire is a shirt, over a T-shirt (I even got hassled because I was wearing a tank-top under my shirt one day), and a tie. The tie mandates that the shirt is buttoned up to the top. Then add long pants and full coverage shoes and socks. To top that off, we are "encouraged" to wear a coat when not engaged in physical activities.

It should come as no surprise that the men want the building a lot cooler; or allow the fashion to change so the men can wear lighter clothing.

Lame article

[Spazmania]

Basically rehashes the Washington Post article from last week. Consensus: always possible to add clothes. Only so many clothes can be taken off, and it's not just men in 3-piece suits who sweat. Can buy personal heaters. Can't buy personal air conditioners. Deal with it.

Re:Lame article

[HornWumpus]

Consensus: Perky nipples a cool and brighten any day.