Apparently office heating standards are still set for the metabolic rate of an average 40 year old male weighing 155 pounds from 1960. Of course, modern 2015 average males and females (Americans) are both now some 30 pounds(+) heavier and 1" taller than back then, so ... time for an adjustment?
If this is indeed possible ... our office for example seem to be dialed in for whatever the temperature was two days ago. So if there's a brief spike, we'll be freezing two days from now. It's not unusual for people to bring in heaters and sweaters in the summer because the building AC is cranked up high. Talk about wastefulness.
Not that stupid traditions can't be carried far longer than that. We also adjust our indoor office temperature to match a business suit that was developed for unheated rooms in England almost two hundred years ago(*).
In any case, metabolic rate and activity level explains a lot in terms of what temperature people feel comfortable. During the winter, I'll often be sitting in a tshirt while DW is under a blanket. Conversely, in the summer, I'll be crumbled up in a fetal position crying on the floor while DW is wearing jeans.---Well, okay, not quite ... but lying on the floor/lowest point totally works. Much cooler than 1.5 feet further up.
(+) No such drift if you're French or Japanese though. Frechmen (both genders if it wasn't obvious) are some 30 pounds lighter, so like 1960s era Americans.
(*) BTW, if you don't heat much during winter, I totally recommend wool suit and tie for your leisure wear. It's very comfortable! I actually wore that in the RV at times back when I wrote the ERE book
)
), but between Beyonce's fish-net feminism and this type of silly sexism, I no longer see the kind of thoughtful equality women used to seek. *sigh* I'm tapping out. Women are on their own.
