Word of the Day: Incorrigible

in·cor·ri·gi·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-kôr-j-bl, -kr-)
adj.
Incapable of being corrected or reformed: an incorrigible criminal.
Firmly rooted; ineradicable: incorrigible faults.
Difficult or impossible to control or manage: an incorrigible, spoiled child.

Some of you may remember a little episode I had a while back with the office temperature lady. (What would be the title of a person who controls the temperature?) Back in December the office was so cold, we had to wear three coats, a scarf and gloves just to stay warm. It was anywhere between 67 and 70 degrees on a daily basis, which often led to us complaining incessantly about frostbite and hypothermia. Finally, one day I broke down and called the temperature lady.

Flash forward to April 13, 2006... I enter the building. I ride the elevator, walk down the hall... it's all quite pleasant. Until I set foot into the office in which I work and around me settles air so stiflingly warm that I almost can't breathe and my skin clams up instantly from unbelieveable humidity. I can only imagine they are trying to prove to us they have absolutely no control over the temperature of this building. It has been an incorrigible 80 degrees everyday for two weeks. Oh yeah, sure, occasionally the temperature dips to a low of 77 - but that is a rare occurance.

By the second week of this weather, my florescent light coworker was threatening to come to work in shorts and my boss had mentioned something about a speedo. I would have to take desperate measures if I was going to save my sanity. So what did I do? I called the temperature lady. She arrived with her laser temperature gun and pointed it around at various surfaces testing the temperature, which she found to be between 78-80 degrees throughout. "It's really hot in here," I said with a resigned sigh. "It's well within the acceptable range according to the GSA," she says. "We don't have to do anything about it."

I looked up this supposed "range" and the only thing I found suggested that during occupancy the building should be kept between 70 and 78 degrees. 80 is, as I see it, well WITH OUT the acceptable range. Furthermore "Overexposure to heat can lead to a decrease in physical and mental performance, resulting in an increased potential for errors and accidents," says the Department of Sustainability and Environment. I believe it is in their best interest to turn the heat down already and quit trying to run us out of here by threatening to melt our brain cells.

And that lady should really learn to calm herself down. I'm not asking her to anihilate the universe. I'm asking her to turn the temperature down a degree or two. It's really not that big a deal. It's a dial. You turn it. It goes down.