Thermostat, Redux

Bad news: J. has returned and is watching the thermostat like a hawk. In an effort to ease tensions, I have posted a calendar in the break room which assigns thermostat control to employees on a rotating basis. Right now, as I type, a fellow employee who I won’t name is eyeing the calendar and attached petition as he sips his coffee. He obviously doesn’t want to be the first to sign. This may be a problem. Mob behavior rules in an office environment. Perhaps I should have approached each employee individually and filled the petition with signatures before presenting it to J., at which point she would have had no choice but to add hers.

Ongoing Thermostat War

Another sweltering day in a gray-and-pink, seventy-five degree hell. My only thoughts are of turning down the thermostat. Every time I begin to develop a thought, the heat prickle on my forehead tells me it’s time to attack the thermostat again.

Even worse, the dolt in the cubicle next to me keeps muttering lyrics to some song with a “Boom-chakalaka” refrain. Quite often these days the dead look like appealing alternatives to the living.

Thermostat Wars

In my last post, I was attempting to prove that philosophical zombies do exist -- an impossible task, but I might point to the example of a coworker whom I shall call J. Every day, without fail, she insists the temperature in the office remain at a sweltering seventy-five degrees. When she is not looking I turn the communal thermostat back down to an ideal sixty-eight degrees but it is seldom long before she catches on and turns the temperature back up again. Her behavior is representative of that of a psychological zombie, for whom material comfort is everything. I need not add examples of numerous and regular cigarette and coffee breaks. Her lack of affect when I confront her is alarming.

An informal survey of my coworkers has affirmed that sixty-eight degrees is the preferred temperature, but J. is such a domineering personality, and my coworkers are such mindless drones -- further example that such a “zombified” state exists -- that my attempts to create a petition have been failures.

Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to continue. Da Corella was able to record his observations of zombie civilization while in the sweltering heat of Kongo; I shall be able to record mine while baking in a cubicle.

I shall overcome J. with sheer persistence.