The facilities manager, a man named Earl, came up to our floor at 9:40. He had a pair of bolt cutters in one hand and the photo I sent printed out in the other. The office manager, Janet, walked in right behind him.
Janet had been looking for the thermostat key since February. She had asked about it in two staff meetings. Nobody knew where it was.
Bethany did.
Earl cut the padlock off in about four seconds. He set the thermostat to seventy. Then he turned to the floor and read out the building code, which says climate controls in shared workspaces cannot be locked by individual employees. Then he read the company policy, which said the same thing in fewer words.
Bethany did not look up from her screen. But her face was red.
A year of being the guy who cannot handle a professional environment, and it turned out the environment was the problem the whole time.
Earl also took the space heater out from under the desk of the woman next to me. He said it was a fire hazard, and now that the room was seventy degrees, she would not need it anyway. She laughed and said she would not.
Our pregnant coworker, Maria, came back on Thursday. The first thing she did was walk over to the thermostat and look at the number. Then she took her coat off. She said it was the first time in months she had sat at her desk without it.
Janet asked Bethany to come to her office that afternoon. They were in there almost an hour.
I found out later why Bethany wanted it so cold. She had been going through menopause for two years. She had hot flashes that hit her in the middle of meetings and left her sweating through her blouse. She was embarrassed. She thought if she explained, people would laugh. So she made the whole floor freeze instead, and blamed anybody who complained.
Janet fixed it in one day. She moved Bethany to a desk by the big window that opens, and ordered her a quiet little desk fan. She also moved the whole floor to a zoned system that fall, so each side of the office could have its own temperature.
Bethany came to my desk the next week. She said she was sorry. She said she was not proud of how she handled it. She said she had been miserable, and she took it out on everybody.
I told her she did not have to explain. I told her my mom went through the same thing. I remember her standing in front of the open freezer on summer nights.
Bethany laughed. She said, that is exactly it.
The office is seventy degrees now. Bethany has her window and her fan. Maria had her baby in the spring and brought her in to meet everybody.
Nobody was wearing a coat.