Frigid Air Conditioning

About excessive frigid air conditioning.

At a client’s home the other day outside of Boston, I thought I would freeze to death. She greeted us saying she had turned the central air conditioning way up so we would be comfortable, but we were all dressed for the steamy, muggy July weather. She greeted us wearing a heavy, snuggly sweater.

It didn’t seem polite to ask to borrow a sweater to wear over my short, sleeveless dress, or to have her turn down the air-conditioning, because she seemed terribly proud of her frigid house. The cold was a distraction and halfway through the two-hour meeting, I wanted to leave, but suffered in silence for the sake of her business. What should I have done? Neither of my two male colleagues were wearing jackets, or I would have asked to borrow one.

–Anonymous, Boston, MA

Its cultural. It gave your client a certain amount of power and prestige being able to make you shiver. Despite the huge greenhouse-gas emissions issue, many sophisticated office lease holders require chilling capacity air-conditioners. The more upscale the store, the cooler the chill.

Counterintuitively, researchers have found that more mistakes are made and employees are less productive when indoor temperature is 68 degrees to 72 degrees, as opposed to the more comfortable 74 to 76. There is actually an app called Comfy w here owners of air-conditioners can type in that they’re too hot or cold or just fine to learn what you like when and tells the air-conditioning system when to boast or hold back the cold.

Excessive air-conditioning is such a common problem, there are even fashion blogs that show you how to dress for the extremes of entering a cold office building from the suffocating subway.

Layering of course is the way to go and there is no better fashion accessory than the summer jacket, which you can keep in your freezing cubicle for when the temperature drops to 68 degrees in August. Look at these cute work outfits from themuse.com.