Working in an office is a pretty predictable experience most of the time, I’d say. Working in an office inside a large production facility, however, is different every single day. You never know what you’re going to get when the production workers come sidling into the office talking about clogged drain pipes and broken forklifts. Suddenly the day gets a lot more interesting when things are going wrong. And things are constantly going wrong, because things are constantly happening. Since it’s a production space, we never really close. That means we’re technically open even on major national holidays, which is how I wound up spending Thanksgiving all alone last year. There was one good thing about being in that facility all alone all day, the ability to control the thermostat in the office. Usually I don’t have a voice in the great thermostat debate, because there are so many folks sharing one single air vent in the office. Democracy wins when 5 people are shoved in a tiny room with one air control device. When I was in there all alone, though, I had ultimate control over the heating and cooling system. I cranked up the heat and stopped shivering for the first time, lounging back and relaxing in the wonderful warmth. It was the most calming, peaceful holiday of my entire life. I left the facility after a full day of blissful heated paradise and figured no one would ever know… well, they figured it out when our energy report arrived at the end of the month, and our power usage spiked for 8 hours on Thanksgiving.
The different types of thermostats