Battle of the thermostat temperature ignites in an office, employee takes things into her own hand and gains control: ‘Her boss never figured [it] out’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Mar 6, 2025 1:00 PM EST

Welcome back to the age old battle of who gets to control the thermostat. It happens in every shared-living space situation. One person likes it cooler while the other prefers it warmer. What do you do? Usually what happens is that the different body-temperature people go back and forth at sneakily changing the thermostat. It will never end. The best thing you can do is give everyone their own thermostat to control. Or, you can attempt a quick little mind game by simply disconnecting the thermostat, but have it still on so it looks like you can change it. Then see if it's all in the minds of the people you share the space with or risk getting called out…

 

This employee was sick of playing this war game. She was cold and had enough. So you know what she did? She reached out to maintenance… 

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  • She requested the check the thermostats and found out that they all needed to be changed. They were ancient. So she made sure they all got replaced and order was restored in the office… Well, everywhere expect the boss' office!

  • Cheezburger Image 10475842048
    via Unsplash+ (and Kateryna Hliznitsova)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "Enjoy the heat and cold..."

    This story is actually my wife's. Many years ago she worked as an accountant for a local hospital system. The accounting department was shoe-horned in between a couple of other departments and climate control was awful.
    via What-do-I-know32112
  • Uncomfortably hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The boss was all - grow up, there's nothing that can be done about it and forbid anyone from complaining. Finally, my wife had enough and contacted the maintenance department.
    via What-do-I-know32112
  • They checked into it and discovered that all of the thermostats in the department needed to be changed as they were all well over 30 years old.
    via What-do-I-know32112
  • So, the following week all the thermostats were changed - except for the one in the boss's office. It was 'overlooked' when my wife made a list of the thermostats in the
    via What-do-I-know32112
  • department. Her boss never figured out why her office had such lousy temperature control when the problem disappeared in the rest of the department.
    via What-do-I-know32112
  • Accomplished-Emu-591 Perfect payback. twiggyrox And also she was too stupid to notice that everyone else had a new thermostat except her blackergot That's why she was the boss!
    via Accomplished-Emu-591
  • Tasty-Mall8577 I worked somewhere like this, but our problem was that people would always fiddle with the thermostat to their own liking. Maintenance ended up disconnecting our particular one from the system, but not telling anyone. As long as everybody thought they were controlling the temperature, they were still happy. I may or may not have made this solution suggestion!
    via Tasty-Mall8577
  • Cheezburger Image 10475863296
    via Unsplashed+ (and Christin Hume)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • brokeneyes_ We had that problem. We have scientific instruments that need to be kept at a constant temperature that was too cold for many of the people working here. So they kept cranking up the temperature. First they placed locked plastic boxes over the thermostats, but people would slip unbent paper clips in through the ventilation holes and turn up the heat. So then they just hard-set the temperature and disconnected the thermostats.
    via brokeneyes_
  • OriginallronDan I had a landlord who did that to me. Put in a thermostat that was at 72°, with no adjusting possible. Before I went to bed at night, I would take a coffee cup full of ice cubes and sit it on top of the thermostat. If I didn't, my cup of water in my room would have a skin of ice on it in the morning. In retrospect, I probably should've slept in the living room. Edit: Added a space, deleted a word that was in there twice, and added the word "it." I didn't sit on the thermostat, the
    via OriginalIronDan
  • CatlessBoyMom Both hubby and one BIL have done things like this for some people. One person in particular would call every morning at 8:45 (his break time) to say his office was either too hot or too cold. The system was centrally controlled. Every day BIL would call him back at 8:47 to let him know it was fixed. Every day at 9:00 he'd get a thank you email. Most days BIL was out working on other things the whole time, but he appreciated the thank you email anyway.
    via CatlessBoyMom
  • Nunov_DAbov This reminded me of an experience I had many years ago. I worked for an R&D organization. I had a bunch of electronic test equipment running experiments in my office so it got warm. The AC was controlled in a block of 3 offices but the thermostat wasn't in my office. The guy who controlled it two offices away liked to keep the temperature at 78 degrees. As a result my office was in the 80s. Every time I turned the temperature to a reasonable 72 in his office, he turned it back up and
    via Nunov_DAbov
  • Over the weekend, I went into his office and opened up his thermostat. It used a resistive divider to set the desired temperature. I set a desired temperature (68 in his office, 72 in mine) and measured the resistance. I got some resistors and made a fixed setting that replaced his adjustment. Problem solved. Eventually he called maintenance to complain. They couldn't find anything wrong with the system and after a few months just replaced his thermostat. Rinse and repeat...
    via Nunov_DAbov
  • Cheezburger Image 10475866880
    via Unsplash+ (and Victória Kubiaki)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Hermit-Gardener Years ago, I lived in a house that had been converted to two apartments. I lived in the basement apartment, and another couple lived upstairs. For a week during the winter in Utah, the upstairs people went on vacation and set the only thermostat for the whole house - both apartments - to about 50, so the furnace rarely kicked on, and only when it was 50 upstairs.
    via Hermit-Gardener
  • While they had the thermostat, I had the furnace in the basement. So, I placed a jumper across the thermostat circuit which made my apartment delightfully warm. I was home when they returned from vacation, and heard them complaining about how hot it was. They were discussing how maybe the thermostat was broken and I could hear them tapping on it. So I disconnected my jumper and heard one of them say, "Oh, I fixed it!"
    via Hermit-Gardener
  • Rude_Pomegranate2522 As a retired HVAC tech...I approve. I know of 3 businesses in the Orlando FL area, that have thermostats that do absolutely nothing... except get that one person, to stop complaining. I've replaced T-stats for newer ones that the temperature can be locked to a small range of temperature. Giving people the ability to raise or lower the temperature by 3 degrees.
    via Rude_Pomegranate2522
  • Ha-Funny-Boy One place I worked was a "cubicle farm". I got very cold so my manager got me a space heater for under my desk. One afternoon a manager from another department walked by and heard the fan motor. She said "It is against company policy to have space heaters at your desk." I told her "I'm sure that applies to everyone in the company but me." When she asked why I thought that I told her the company bought it for me.
    via Ha-Funny-Boy

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