Wouldn't get a membership at Muirfield...

Apparently you can only get a fan ordered for your desk at work if you're pregnant, or there's a medical need (I'm not sure what medical complaint there could be that is cured by the rushing of oscillated air past one's face, but there you go, rules is rules). What we could get was a portable aircon unit. Except it turns out there wasn't even one of those available, so what turned up was an HSS Hire Centre industrial fan, that could only be plugged in 7 miles from our set of four desks, the only ones in the department without a desk fan to share, and made a noise that would shake Hades to its core. And which will be costing some humungoamount more than nipping round to Ali's Cave on Lothian Road and buying a £13.99 fan.

Working conditions today in the greenhouse that is our office were somewhat... trying. Last week there was an email went round with 5 items of advice linked to on our intranet for how to deal with the heat. This included such gems as "switch off monitors and computers as they create heat" (that's going to see a lot of work done...); "use blinds where available" (who'd have thought... Except all of our blinds are electronic, and about two sets of them work, much like our pokey wee windows, about 10% of which open because some eejit thought that old-fashioned idea of a wee lever and pushing was terribly old-hat); "remember to take extra layers because in this country the weather can change quickly and it might get a lot colder" (a serious 'wtf' moment that one); and "canvas opinion before raising an official notice that it's warm, as too warm for you may be too cold for some of your colleagues" (quite frankly if over 30 degrees, and some ridiculous humidity figure, is too cold for anyone then Scotland isn't the place for them...).

In the end I offered to be pregnant, but thought it might be difficult to carry off.

Note, this isn't complaining about the weather, and long may it continue, it's fab. It's not even complaining about having to work in this weather, even though to insist we do so is clearly inhumane, and more than likely a breach of my Human Rights or something. But rather working somewhere where the provision of one single desk fan can be such a chore, despite the building clearly not being able to cope with the heat (the aircon being non-existent), and where the solution is for five people to spend a day cobbling together some 'guidance' on how to cope with the heat that is frankly as grounded in reality as an aerial porcine display team.

Oh, and I may be cranky because it's day three without the bike after using my head as a brake on the road. The bus to work has been fine (I'm near the start of the route, and early enough it's not that busy), but coming home yesterday took 50 minutes door to door, and today took 45 minutes (5 minutes quicker by actually walking further, a lot further, to get a different bus number). My normal bike commute is 15-20 minutes home. My long bike commute home is about 40 minutes. And I don't have to sit next to Chantelle with her giant yellow bag, and multiple carrier bags, nattering the whole way into her mobile about some job interview she had.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early and walking. So it'll probably be cold and rain.