Bureaucracy Over Air Conditioning in Melbourne

air conditioning serviceBureaucrats have not been keeping their cool over summer, with government offices reporting an average of three forms needing to be filled in before cooling may be switched on.

Due to poor productivity caused by lack of  air conditioning, Melbourne CBD offices alone is projected to have lost two million dollars collectively.

The office winning the dubious title of most forms to fill out requires some twelve forms before the air conditioner may be switched on.

An anonymous employee of the comments that he is not surprised that so many forms are involved.

“They just let us sweat, no matter if it is forty degrees plus they still will not switch on the air con because they want us to be more environmentally friendly,” he said.

“Never mind the trees that got cut down for their precious forms. One of my former colleagues once couldn’t take it anymore and switched on the power to their air conditioner- she didn’t even make it to the ‘on’ button before she was fired.”

Of nearly four hundred offices surveyed across the state, less than twenty do not require any forms to be filled out before air conditioning is engaged.

The survey was conducted by the Melbourne Centre for Office Research (CCOR). The CCOR itself requires eight forms to be filled before air conditioning may be approved.

Despite rarely using an air conditioning service, Melbourne offices spend an average of two thousand dollars per year on air conditioning maintenance and running costs. This number is likely inflated by one office spending upwards of five hundred thousand dollars per year on air conditioning costs.

“We expect that the air conditioning expenditure of the business in question is actually allocated to other costs although this has not been confirmed,” said CCOR chief investigator Dr Albert Kent.

“When this business is excluded from the survey, the average air conditioning expenditure is less than one thousand dollars.”

Dr Kent says that a follow-up survey on office procedures for heating will be conducted in Winter.

The Talk of the Aluminium Folk

gas bottle holdersThere are workmen at the house today. Mummy said I shouldn’t talk to them, but I’m sitting here at the window watching and I can’t fathom why. They see like really people, just like us. Mummy also said they speak a strange commoner language, but apart from stronger accents, a heavier use of slang and some ghastly profanity, that is also not true. Perhaps as you grow to be an adult, you forget how to speak to people who are different to you? That’s the impression I am getting.

I am currently supposed to be working on my very first socialist manifesto, but I’m finding that I enjoy listening to the conversation outside the window far more. It just makes for such interesting listening, like I’ve discovered a portal to another world and everything I heard is something brand new and exciting. Apparently Justin was late that morning and forget the key to his toolbox, and he was being lightly berated by his colleagues for his lack of skill operating the toolbox central locking. Father has talked about central locking before, but only when mentioning it to Yusef, our chauffeur. I suppose tools must be expensive, if they must be locked up inside such a secure box.

The conversation then turned to models of ‘utes’. I assume this is some kind of automobile, perhaps those strange cars these people drive with the space around the back for placing all kinds of items. I’ve seen pictures of these vehicles with dogs riding in the rear compartment, and I thus assumed that was what they were for. None of these people have brought a dog with them, though their ‘utes’ are adorned with many mysterious boxes. The one called Greg mentioned gas bottle holders and under tray drawers. This means nothing much to me, so I can only neglect my manifesto and continue to listen so that I can decipher the mystery of the boxes. I mean…they are probably full of tools. That seems logical. But this is a strange new world I am glimpsing. Anything could happen.

-Madeira