Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path. ~Author Unknown
Let me tell you a story.
The climate here in the Philippines is humid and most offices rely on airconditioners to make workplaces cool. As it is humid, most people feel hot and tired from the commute so the first thing that they want once they got inside the office is turn the air conditioner on in full blast. In our office, people working on the day shift start coming in at 7am until 9am. And as people come in, they usually turn on the airconditioners in full blast to make the work area coller faster. This is of benefit especially for people who are just coming in from the hot temperature outside.
This system posts a problem, however, to the early people who come in. Imagine, you are one of those who arrived at 7am. By 8am or 7:30 am, your body would have adjusted to the cool room temperature and will be chilly by that time. But for those who are still coming in from 8am to 9am, they still feel that hot temperature. So what do people do? They start wearing jackets.
By lunch time, most of the table's conversation revolves around how cold it is in the work area and how hot it is in the pantry. The reason was because when people come into the office, it is so hot outside and they want to feel comfortable once they get inside the office. So most people will turn the aircon full blast. On the other hand, people only go to the pantry during lunch. and most often, they are so cold from the full blast aircon, they won't turn on the airconditioner in the pantry. Once the pantry becomes filled up, the room becomes warm and people start comparing the temperature in the work area with the temperature in the pantry.
What's weird though is that most people will just share what they feel instead of acting on it. Nobody turns off the aircon in the work area and nobody turns on the aircon in the pantry. It is so easy to complain rather than act on it.
I tried to determine why people don't turn off the aircon in the work area. My best guess was they don't want to be the person to do it in fear that someone will complain about turning it off. Weird as it may sound but my guess was this is part of our culture as Filipinos. We never want to offend the other party. We are that hospitable. In fact, we are not even sure that we will offend the other person but for the sake of not offending anyone, we just bear the inconvenience ourselves. Is this good or bad? I don't know. I'm sure that there are instances that this culture of us works best.
