Office as a freezer

I am now in my office, shivering like a rabbit. It is not because of any predator nearby; instead, the office temperature is very low and makes me trembling a lot.

An English tour-guide book of Hong Kong mentions that HK indoor temperature is much low than the outdoor temperature! It suggests tourists to bring a coat or a jacket if they go for any indoor activities, e.g. shopping, dining. Although we are in the subtropical zone, our indoor temperature is always similar to the Arctic Circle (I admit I exaggerate a bit).

It explains why I need to drink 5-6 cups of hot water in office a day, because I should get the heat from hot water.

Why we should set the temperature that low? Several years ago, we had two Norwegian classmates; they love Hong Kong a lot except the temperature, and also air conditioners in classrooms. They couldn’t stand the chilly and wet ambience in air conditioned places in Hong Kong. These two Scandinavian told me that although Norway was much colder than Hong Kong, they will not feel as hard as in Hong Kong indoor area, air conditioners here made them sick.

My administrative department revealed our comment to the property agent, but the feedback was unsatisfactory. The staff explained that if they adjusted the air con temperature, several floors above and below us will also be affected. Since no one from other floors also complaint about this, it was ‘inappropriate’ to adjust it simply based on our feeling… Fine, it is absolutely fine!

I think we may set a project to investigate how people in every floor think about the ‘micro-climate’ of our building; I am going to draft a questionnaire.