• Troy Mclure (unregistered)

    Hope they had crullers. That would make talking to people almost bearable.

  • Rod Horny (unregistered)

    I was hoping that Devon's remark about it being chilly would have made it obvious that there were erect nipples present - sigh - such is life.

  • (cs) in reply to Rod Horny
    Rod Horny:
    I was hoping that Devon's remark about it being chilly would have made it obvious that there were erect nipples present - sigh - such is life.

    Sadly, that also came to my mind...

  • (cs)

    I love cream sticks the best

  • flamebait (unregistered)

    The real WTF is that the I.T. guy actually fixed the problem (2 in one day in fact)

  • (cs)

    Reminds me of a story my dad told me about one of the offices he did some work in. The heating and AC systems ran separately from each other, with their own ducting and thermostats. When they did the layouts for the rooms, the did the smart thing, and for each system, put the exhaust ducts and thermostats on opposite sides of the room.

    Unfortunately, they put the AC thermostat right under the heating exhaust, and the heating thermostat right under the AC exhaust. The two systems had nice tug O' war fights with each other.

  • O Thieu Choi (unregistered)

    Many years ago I worked with help desk staff, and one winter we were freezing. It took a while for anyone to notice that the Laserjet II was immediately under the thermostat. Moving the printer fixed this.

    Presently, though, another problem developed. Network and programming staff had a south window, management a north window. Heating the manager's office sufficiently required cooking the network and programming staff; that was not considered an undue sacrifice.

  • (cs) in reply to RobbieAreBest
    RobbieAreBest:
    Rod Horny:
    I was hoping that Devon's remark about it being chilly would have made it obvious that there were erect nipples present - sigh - such is life.

    Sadly, that also came to my mind...

    I no longer feel alone here.

  • CumpsD (unregistered)

    Guess it became a very hot afternoon then, with the thermostat working normal again, but being set to the max temperature and everyone wearing sweaters.

  • halber_mensch (unregistered)

    Records Administration Department...

    That's so RAD. And they probably have a Network Engineering and Research Department, too.

    captcha: waffles; Work Area Frozen Food Less Eggs and Syrup

  • (cs)

    The RealWTF is that they weren't cooking lunch using the heat from the monitor.

    The Pie T Department

  • (cs)

    "And after that, everything was just fine." Except that the plant had to be moved to some suboptimal place. So everything wasn't fine.

  • (cs) in reply to purge
    purge:
    The RealWTF is that they weren't cooking lunch using the heat from the monitor.

    The Pie T Department

    One thing you can say about old technology...CRTs make dandy glove dryers. Just put them on top and by the end of the day they're nice and dry and as a bonus, toasty-warm.

  • Noam Samuel (unregistered)

    The Real WTF (tm) is three doughnuts in one day.dig

  • (cs) in reply to n9ds
    n9ds:
    purge:
    The RealWTF is that they weren't cooking lunch using the heat from the monitor.

    The Pie T Department

    One thing you can say about old technology...CRTs make dandy glove dryers. Just put them on top and by the end of the day they're nice and dry and as a bonus, toasty-warm.

    Sometimes when I go out to lunch I also buy those large homestyle chocolate chip cookies, but save them for a mid-afternoon snack. I put them on top of my CRT (in the cellophane) 10 minutes before I want to eat them and it warms them up and gets the chocolate all soft and gooey.

    The smell makes the rest of the office get chocolate cravings. I love it.

  • (cs)
    fregas:
    uh..wow. That was really like...not very funny at all.

    Sucks now that the daily has gone all commercial.

    Quiet, you. More talk like that and Alex's inane elaborations like "After wolfing down a handful of donuts from their break room" will seem like a happy memory.

  • (cs)

    At least no one employed the old "ice pack on the thermostat" trick and end up dripping all kinds of water into the beyootiful 25" monitor.

  • (cs)

    Devin was a true 'engineer'.

    The Pessimist says the glass is half-empty The Optimist says the glass is half-full The Engineer declares the glass was over-designed!

    [ot] Devin stopped by to took a look ????[/ot]

  • Jon (unregistered)

    I once did this in my own office, only the reverse. The AC guys wouldn't turn down the AC in my office, so I simply moved my monitor directly underneath the thermostat and it kept the room nice and cool from then on.

  • (cs) in reply to evanm
    evanm:
    Reminds me of a story my dad told me about one of the offices he did some work in. The heating and AC systems ran separately from each other, with their own ducting and thermostats. When they did the layouts for the rooms, the did the smart thing, and for each system, put the exhaust ducts and thermostats on opposite sides of the room.

    Unfortunately, they put the AC thermostat right under the heating exhaust, and the heating thermostat right under the AC exhaust. The two systems had nice tug O' war fights with each other.

    Wouldn't the AC exhaust be outside?

  • KM (unregistered)

    This also sounds like my cube mate, he has his 4 monitor setup + computer (on the desk) right underneath the thermostat. And I wonder why it's so cold some days...

  • Mike (unregistered)

    So, they even had to wear sweaters? Isn't that considered common sense in the winter? or would that only be in Europe?

  • Mark (unregistered)

    This reminds me of when I was in high School.

    As where all aware high schools in the USA are underfunded. So how did mine cope? They kept the heat at like 65 degrees. Unable to adjust the thermostats (because they where tamper proof), and sick and tired of freezing our asses off, we discovered we could go out side, grab and hand full of snow and stuff it in the thermostat. Then things would be nice and toasty so we could get our naps in.

  • Huh (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    They kept the heat at like 65 degrees
    freezing our asses off

    ???

  • Troy Mclure (unregistered) in reply to Mark
    Mark:
    This reminds me of when I was in high School.

    As where all aware high schools in the USA are underfunded. So how did mine cope? They kept the heat at like 65 degrees. Unable to adjust the thermostats (because they where tamper proof), and sick and tired of freezing our asses off, we discovered we could go out side, grab and hand full of snow and stuff it in the thermostat. Then things would be nice and toasty so we could get our naps in.

    lol - Reminds me of my high school but in the reverse. They had air-conditioning (and yes it WAS a public school before you ask). Well for some unknown reason it must have been set on Meat Locker because it was always freezing. So everyone would open the windows to let in the warm air to warm up.

    No matter how many times the teachers explained that the AC actually got colder when the windows were opened, it didnt stop people. And thus started a vicious cycle of AC tag.

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to Huh
    Huh:
    They kept the heat at like 65 degrees
    freezing our asses off

    ???

    For most practical purposes , everything's significantly colder in Metric.

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to Zygo
    Zygo:
    Huh:
    They kept the heat at like 65 degrees
    freezing our asses off

    ???

    For most practical purposes , everything's significantly colder in Metric.

    No, wait, it's warmer in Metric.

    No, ...

    (sound of vehicle exploding on the launchpad)

    Sigh.

  • smartass (unregistered) in reply to Huh

    65 deg fahrenheit is about 18 deg celsius, ymv

  • no, i believe (unregistered)

    you had me believing for most of it. you broke the fourth wall when i read the part about keeping warm by starting a fire. in a records room.

    (captcha)ewww - cold nipples on most, probably all, of the people working in the room

  • Anon Y. Mouse (unregistered)

    In the building I work in, one of the HVAC units (there are several) is controlled by a thermostat in a different room. Now, that's a fairly common configuration for a unit that heats or cools a large, multi-room area--they just choose one of the rooms and put the thermostat there, instead of creating some kind of exotic network of temperature sensors and averaging them.

    The HVAC unit in question heats and cools a lab area full of temperature-sensitive equipment. This stuff doesn't like being too hot or too cold. And by "doesn't like" I mean "runs up lost billable hours and service charges in the thousands of dollars because it's 85 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 80."

    The thermostat was in another room, and after an office renovation one fine year that room became a loading dock--a room which is insulated from the rest of the building and features near-freezing temperatures in winter and donut-melting heat in summer.

  • Zygo (unregistered) in reply to no, i believe
    no:
    you had me believing for most of it. you broke the fourth wall when i read the part about keeping warm by starting a fire. in a records room.

    Our building has a fireproof vault for storing documents. If you think of what a walk-in freezer looks like, you have the idea, except there's no refrigeration, just insulation.

    There are a few tapes and CD's but 95% of the contents of the room is paper (maybe 30% of the volume of the room in total). If the door is closed the room is theoretically airtight; however, it is rarely fully closed since it takes a fair amount of arm strength to get the latch to close, and people are often in the room to get stuff.

    The "fireproof vault" has an electric light mounted in the ceiling. It is a bare 100W incandescent bulb. You know, the kind that run hot enough to start fires if they are kept in an enclosed space next to flammable materials...

  • Samy (unregistered) in reply to Pap

    That instantly reminds me of http://worsethanfailure.com/Articles/The-Pie-T-Department.aspx

    CAPTCHA: alarm

  • Samy (unregistered) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    n9ds:
    purge:
    The RealWTF is that they weren't cooking lunch using the heat from the monitor.

    The Pie T Department

    One thing you can say about old technology...CRTs make dandy glove dryers. Just put them on top and by the end of the day they're nice and dry and as a bonus, toasty-warm.

    Sometimes when I go out to lunch I also buy those large homestyle chocolate chip cookies, but save them for a mid-afternoon snack. I put them on top of my CRT (in the cellophane) 10 minutes before I want to eat them and it warms them up and gets the chocolate all soft and gooey.

    The smell makes the rest of the office get chocolate cravings. I love it.

    whoops, forget the quote ;)

  • Daniel (unregistered) in reply to Mark

    I would absolutely love it if everybody kept their thermostats at 65 degrees in the winter. It saves a huge amount of energy, and it just seems kinda wrong to keep the house at short-sleeves temperature when it's below freezing outside. Just wear more clothes--you'll need them if you want to step outside even for a few seconds!

  • Herohtar (unregistered) in reply to no, i believe
    no:
    you had me believing for most of it. you broke the fourth wall when i read the part about keeping warm by starting a fire. in a records room.

    Yeah, somehow that statement about the fire makes me doubt the validity of the story.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Troy Mclure
    Troy Mclure:
    lol - Reminds me of my high school but in the reverse. They had air-conditioning (and yes it WAS a public school before you ask). Well for some unknown reason it must have been set on Meat Locker because it was always freezing. So everyone would open the windows to let in the warm air to warm up.

    No matter how many times the teachers explained that the AC actually got colder when the windows were opened, it didnt stop people. And thus started a vicious cycle of AC tag.

    sure, the vent is colder, but you can overpower it by opening more windows.

  • Kinglink (unregistered)

    Sounds like my office. We get one office with 6 people each running 1 computer and one debug kit (game development)

    Then we get the office next door has 8 people most running 1 computer and 2 kits, which run hot! Bonus time! They also get the thermostat.

    Double bonus. The decision to "live with it" was offered to the first room. Second room is actually nicely climate controlled. But hey that's my office, so who cares.

  • sf (unregistered) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    n9ds:
    purge:
    The RealWTF is that they weren't cooking lunch using the heat from the monitor.

    The Pie T Department

    One thing you can say about old technology...CRTs make dandy glove dryers. Just put them on top and by the end of the day they're nice and dry and as a bonus, toasty-warm.

    Sometimes when I go out to lunch I also buy those large homestyle chocolate chip cookies, but save them for a mid-afternoon snack. I put them on top of my CRT (in the cellophane) 10 minutes before I want to eat them and it warms them up and gets the chocolate all soft and gooey.

    The smell makes the rest of the office get chocolate cravings. I love it.

    I worked once with a group where we grew habanero peppers in a garden outside the building and we'd dry the peppers on our monitors. We'd have killer hot salsa/chili breaks in the afternoon just about every day. (Sigh) Those were the days.

  • CleverShark (unregistered) in reply to Jon
    Jon:
    I once did this in my own office, only the reverse. The AC guys wouldn't turn down the AC in my office, so I simply moved my monitor directly underneath the thermostat and it kept the room nice and cool from then on.

    I'm no physicist or anything, but wouldn't doing this result in colder air from the AC system?..

  • Cahlroisse (unregistered) in reply to CleverShark
    CleverShark:
    Jon:
    I once did this in my own office, only the reverse. The AC guys wouldn't turn down the AC in my office, so I simply moved my monitor directly underneath the thermostat and it kept the room nice and cool from then on.

    I'm no physicist or anything, but wouldn't doing this result in colder air from the AC system?..

    I believe by "turn down the AC" he meant turn the temperature down to make the room cooler. I was confused too.

  • Marcel (unregistered)

    Ahh, reminds me of the old "Ice on the thermostat" trick, which would usually lead to all heating shutting down due to shortcircuits in said thermostat.

    CAPTCHA: Doom, indeed.

  • Bobo (unregistered) in reply to Daniel
    Daniel:
    I would absolutely love it if everybody kept their thermostats at 65 degrees in the winter.

    I usually keep mine 62-63 in the winter...

  • four hundred badgers and a parakeet (unregistered) in reply to Mike

    Yep, when I had a 19" CRT, my room was a sauna. Thank God for LCDs. :-D

    Mike:
    So, they even had to wear sweaters? Isn't that considered common sense in the winter? or would that only be in Europe?
    Indoors?
  • (cs) in reply to Cahlroisse
    Cahlroisse:
    CleverShark:
    Jon:
    I once did this in my own office, only the reverse. The AC guys wouldn't turn down the AC in my office, so I simply moved my monitor directly underneath the thermostat and it kept the room nice and cool from then on.

    I'm no physicist or anything, but wouldn't doing this result in colder air from the AC system?..

    I believe by "turn down the AC" he meant turn the temperature down to make the room cooler. I was confused too.

    A guy I worked with once exhorted me to "throw another log on the air conditioner." This metaphor was so mixed that I couldn't work out whether he wanted it warmer or cooler.

  • Daza (unregistered) in reply to RobbieAreBest

    Exactly what I thought too. When I read "That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say." I anticipated a story about sexual harassment and such :P

  • (cs)

    WTF. Programmers arrive at work by 9:00 AM? Or are you just assuming they are still there from the night before?

  • Tom (unregistered)

    I had the same thing happen at work two days ago. A giant monitor was placed eight inches under the thermostat. No one could figure out why the room was so cold all of a sudden.

  • (cs) in reply to Cahlroisse
    Cahlroisse:
    CleverShark:
    Jon:
    I once did this in my own office, only the reverse. The AC guys wouldn't turn down the AC in my office, so I simply moved my monitor directly underneath the thermostat and it kept the room nice and cool from then on.

    I'm no physicist or anything, but wouldn't doing this result in colder air from the AC system?..

    I believe by "turn down the AC" he meant turn the temperature down to make the room cooler. I was confused too.

    Both of you should read the rest of the sentence... "...it kept the room nice and cool from then on." That would answer your question, I should think.

  • CynicalTyler (unregistered)
    Devin walked over to the corner, moved the computer back where it was supposed to be, grabbed a donut for the road (well, elevator ride), and left. And after that, everything was just fine.
    That is until some RAD worker walked over and thought: "Hey, the plant moved! I better put it back to teach it not to become sentient." and promptly replaced the computer under the thermostat.
  • Bobo (unregistered) in reply to four hundred badgers and a parakeet
    four hundred badgers and a parakeet:
    Yep, when I had a 19" CRT, my room was a sauna. Thank God for LCDs. :-D
    Mike:
    So, they even had to wear sweaters? Isn't that considered common sense in the winter? or would that only be in Europe?
    Indoors?

    Indoors. Yeah.

    High heating bills + short sleeves vs. Low heating bills + sweater.

    I'd go for the option that'll let me buy more beer and DVDs...

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