the Wigs have moved on

[sandbox]

When was the last time you walked into a government building in the summer and was not hit with a mass of cold air?

Some of us live in air conditioning 9 months of the years, 76-78º is the comfort zone for sleeping or for a person dressed for the weather.

Now take the government building.

The thermostat set at 68, women freezing, forced to wear sweaters indoors, why?

Because the dress code demands a suit and tie for men. With a suit and tie 68-70º is a comfort zone, but on the other hand the dress code prefers women in a dress.

If one were to reverse this view, would it make sense to adjust the thermostat to accommodate people wearing shorts in Chicago, in January? Would you crank your furnace up to 80º in the winter so visitors wearing a bathing suit in a blizzard could be comfortable in your home?

This oddity struck at a gathering of local officials where we were informed that the city of Tampa would be purchasing new hybrid vehicles for the Mayor and staff while seated in a building that was 10º cooler than it needed to be for the women in the room. The Hybrid gesture was nothing more than symbolic, the truth is in the hundreds of government building managed by the City of Tampa.

Now consider corporate buildings, and you’ll find similar dress code requirements. Extend the foolish dress code to the whole State of Florida, to every building south of the Mason Dixon line where temperature and humidity can hover close to 90º for 6 mouths of the year.

Just one small adjustment in the way we dress our professionals and huge differences in energy consumption and pollution could be realized.

If you wouldn’t set your thermostat to 68º in summer at home, why would you pay taxes so someone else could? Why would you expect that these same people could create environmental and energy policy when they can’t even make the small sacrifice of adjusting the suit & tie dress code? What is the dress code after all but a symbolism to conformity that has out lived its usefulness in a climate that needs flexibility?

Could changes in design and material of the professional’s attire satisfy the demand for conformity while balancing the need to keep those power brokers cool? Would they accept a flexible code so we could move past the symbolic and into the substantive? We can see that it has happened in the past, the Wigs have moved on.

[gunug]

The AC is generally broken in our courthouse (at least when I'm there); but I do see your point as a generality.  I'd like to see the judges in speedo's and bikini's myself (well, maybe not).

As for the car debate maybe they should hold out for the deal the mayor of Kansas City, Mo got:

QUOTE

Missouri law and city ordinances allow (Mayor) Funkhouser to accept the $23,195 Civic Hybrid from Honda of Tiffany Springs. The car won't cost the city anything, Funkhouser said, and the dealership doesn't want anything in return, except some free publicity.

[kimmer]

QUOTE(sandbox @ Jun 18 2007, 10:09 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Because the dress code demands a suit and tie for men. With a suit and tie 68-70º is a comfort zone, but on the other hand the dress code prefers women in a dress.

My last job had a dress code like this and I roasted all summer in "nylons" with the thermostat set at 90 in the office. Would have been so much more comfortable if I had been allowed to wear dress slacks. Of course if the head honcho was gone, the second honcho cranked the AC down to 65 cuz he was always sweating. Winter was worse because they both had room heaters and I had ... nada ... and it would take until noon to bring the temp UP to 65. Slacks would have worked better then as well. LOL!

I hate shopping in stores that are freezing the summer and roasting hot in the winter. It's all crazy. The world has nuts, I tell ya. Nuts.

QUOTE(gunug @ Jun 18 2007, 10:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'd like to see the judges in speedo's and bikini's myself (well, maybe not).

EWWWWWWWWWW! No thanks! I've yet to see a guy who really and truly looks good in a speedo.
Some things are just best left to ones imagination.

Hybrid cars ... aren't those also a "green" issue with the batteries and such?

[krissel]

This reminds me of the kid I had in one of my classes who invariably would act up sometime in the afternoon on hot days. I finally took him aside and asked him why.  He confessed that he was trying to get me to send him to the office because that was the only place in the building that had air conditioning.




The reverse was often true as well. In winter some of the rooms were lucky to get much above 60º since their thermostats were broken. Despite that, some kids in those classes came to school in t-shirts or short skirts even in January. Since I moved from room to room I never knew how to dress.

[sandbox]

Yes Kimmer, Hybrids like the http://www.toyota.com/prius/ Prius is a vehicle that incorporates battery technology with an internal combustion  engine to run cleaner and more economical. The irony is that the Mayor and staff may save a few thousand dollars in fuel cost and reduce the pollution factor minimally, but they could have accomplished the same, without the $250,000 purchase, just by adjusting the temperature in the building we were in. The issue is conservation and pollution reduction, which will require thinking, planning and some sacrifice. What this decision did was to eliminate thought and planning, inject symbolism, advertisement and promotion and tell the public there is no need to sacrifice, just Go Shopping.

Kris, there is no doubt that older buildings in the northeast could use upgrades or replacement, but here in the South the building stock is newer in many respects. It was an easy choice to just crank up the heat for the whole building instead of repairing the broken system in years gone by, but when energy costs increased the option became less attractive. When most of the northeast was built-out, air-conditioning hadn’t been invented and places like Tampa-St. Pete were little more than winter escapes. All through my k-12 school years there was no air-conditioning in any school that I had attended in Ma. It was only when I reach my college years, with their newer or refurbished buildings that I had the luxury of sitting in a controlled environment. The budget at Holy Cross or Clark U, were far and away more flexible than the k-12 schools I had attended and the introduction of computers at WPI required them to incorporated air-conditioning with the computers. K-12 got the budgetary shaft even back then, seems to be way back then on another planet these days.

[Gregg]

kris, that was one clever kid!

sandbox, do you think the private sector's casual dress code will ever penetrate the halls of democracy? Hardly any of the men in our office of "professionals" wears a tie, much less a coat. The women are just as likely to wear slacks as a skirt. That's been the trend for a long time.

[sandbox]

Gregg, its pretty much dependant on the industry. There are uniforms and suits in the medical sector, suit & tie in the legal, banking and insurance sectors. Most sales reps. are suited up, and most of our daily activity requires suits or sports jackets & ties.

This is all well & good if you don’t live in a climate that’s tropical but a person down here hardly ever shuts off the air-condition in the car. The desert is dry so 90º is tolerable, but in 90% humidity and 90º is a whole lot different and most of the people moving from outdoors to indoors wearing a suit are soaked. In 5 minutes from the car to an office building you can change the color of a white shirt. When you remove your tie it’s wet. If it’s hot here with a sea breeze it’s incredible hot in the deep south where temps run 105º and you can see the air.

[kimmer]

QUOTE

The issue is conservation and pollution reduction, which will require thinking, planning and some sacrifice. What this decision did was to eliminate thought and planning, inject symbolism, advertisement and promotion and tell the public there is no need to sacrifice, just Go Shopping.

Ah, now there's the rub and my biggest beef -- and I don't mean BBQ.

This whole notion of paying someone else to be green and conserve for you, or a show of green/conservation while you keep on with your same ol' lifestyle -- it's a sham and the people doing it are living a LIE as far as I'm concerned. Just MHO.

I've always thought that actions speak louder than words, and if leaders and government and "famous folks" who all think WE should conserve and live "greener" would actually DO what they say *I* should do ... well, then I'd really pay closer attention.

As it is, Sneakers and I do what we can. I know we could do better, but I'm not ready to sacrifice everything. See, I'm a talker not a doer at times.

I do agree with you that dress codes are one of those things that should take the climate into consideration. You don't have to allow shorts and skimpy tops in order to have a "cooler" (temp wise), smarter and healthier dress code. (Maybe that's how you approach a reform, btw. Do some research on the healthy issues of overdressing in the heat/humidity. Just a thought.)

I heard a news report recently that said the sale of a/c units in Portland was skyrocketing. Seems the summers are getting hotter and folks don't want to bake in their homes.

I wonder if this is because we are all so used to office buildings and stores that are air conditioned?

Good luck on getting reform!

[sandbox]

Well Kim, I think it's a lifestyle change, you don't want to sweat on your suit. When I was in Oregon, either bicycling in the Portland area or working in Sunriver I was outdoors, and sweating on your construction outfit or bike gear was the norm. But in a zoot suit you need to make a statement, and that statement doesn't include sweating. No Sweat.