As any woman who has sat beneath the blasting Arctic gale of an office air-conditioning unit can tell you, it’s not just a glass ceiling — this one’s covered in ice, too.
The journal Nature Climate Change, which reports on the cutting-edge research behind the climate change debate, has published a study of 16 young women performing “light office work” showing that they were at risk of being “over chilled” by air conditioning. Air conditioning may suit hairy-chested middle-aged men, but it is a daily discomfort for the rest of us. The cold-office phenomenon — as well as being a reckless use of fossil fuels to deep-freeze female office staff — has also spawned a second work wardrobe — the air conditioning cover-up.
The chair cardigan
You can’t remember where this came from. You’re not even sure it’s yours. And short of carbon-dating the armpits, you wouldn’t like to say how long it has been hanging over the back of your executive swivel chair. But, once that fierce post-lunch typhoon hits, you know you’ll be crawling back into it like the arms of an ex-boyfriend.
The emergency suit jacket
You used to keep this in your locker in case someone unexpectedly invited you to a networking evening or you’d forgotten a court appearance. But, these days, more often than not, you find yourself reaching for the navy lapels and soft shoulder pads of your emergency smart suit the way Shackleton grappled around his hut for another seal skin.
The pastel pashmina
Unless you actually are a middle-aged art teacher, love hockey or regularly open new wings in galleries, you probably don’t count a pastel pashmina as part of your everyday wardrobe. And yet every day you swaddle yourself in its cashmere charms like the lattice on a Greggs cheese-and-onion pasty.
The novelty onesie
Oh, how you laughed when Derek from marketing got you a flying squirrel Kigu in last year’s Secret Santa. You told him you were thrilled, that it would be perfect for your friend’s hen do and that you would definitely WhatsApp him a picture of you wearing it under the tree that he could tweet from the company account to add a bit of “human colour”. But then you never had a bag big enough to lug the gargantuan thing home and, actually, it is quite warm. Especially if you put the hood up. Your gym T-shirt It’s not smelly. Just a bit musty. Like your granny’s curtains or the back seat on the number 4 bus.
