I have been in some smaller stores where the AC was more than cold enough as some of the employees (more so young women) were wearing their uniform soft shell or fleece jacket, especially if they were not doing enough physical work to keep warm. If you must use AC than make it say 21c and not what seems like say 10c or colder -_-
I work in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Last summer, we hit records for the most rain and lowest temperatures experienced in our province on those dates/during a summer season. On the East coast, Canadian provinces were hitting record highs; corporate demanded our A/C temperatures match the settings back east! It was 12 degrees or lower inside our stores! Customers were complaining left and right but we couldn’t do anything about it because an outside company controlled our thermostats and they took orders directly from corporate! Ridiculous!
I’ve worked in places where the AC gets pretty freakin cold. Even dressed in uniform, wearing pants, I was getting chilled. I can’t imagine having it up that high is good for the electric bill.
almost sounds like a repeat.. same girl too, if I remember right. Except the tag line was something to the effect of the employees being comfortable because they were wearing normal clothes, and the punchline was that they would try to find the “customer” setting.
I’ve always had the opposite experience. The A/C will be cranked all the way up so we employees are wearing sweaters and when we say that it’s too cold the customers will “correct” us and tell us “It’s COMFORTABLE.” Maybe it’s fine if you’re just in and out, but being in a refrigerated room for hours is not pleasant. I think anyone who needs it to be 55 degrees inside to be comfortable has medical issues they need to address.
If this customer knows ahead of time that the AC will be too high she ought to dress appropriately for it. Wear pants instead of shorts and have a jacket you can put on in the store. Or take your complaint to someone who can do something about it. Val only works there and has no control on how high the AC is.
The general health guide says that an AC should not be set more then 5 degrees Centigrade higher/lower them the ambiant temperature to avoid people getting sick.
Huh. Where I work, for the past 3 years “in an effort to help the environment” (IE: An effort to save money) they’ve kept the AC on low so it seems to hover around 78 degrees… and this is a Big Box Retailer!
We’ve had customers say “Wow… it’s cool in here compared to outside, but once you adjust, it’s actually not that cold at all… and I’m wearing shorts and a T-Shirt! I can’t imagine how hot you must be!”
I’ve literally taken to fanning my cashiers with a broken down cardboard box because it gets so hot at the front of the store near the entrance doors and the food area. I would KILL for a little “frozen on the inside” store action.
I think that Creepy Customer Guy appreciates the cold AC and female customers in tank tops.
Grocery stores have a good reason for the AC to be set around 70F. The refrigeration and freezer units work most efficiently at that temperature. If you raise the AC, then the extra power needed for refrigeration is more than any savings on the AC.
THAT’S why it’s so cold in the grocery store.
It makes sense that the grocery store needs to keep food cold, and therefore has to keep the A/C high. I just wish more of them would invest in doors for all of the refrigerated areas to keep the cold air where it needs to be, on the food, not me.
It depends on the building too, all the retail/supermarkets I’ve worked in have been older buildings and the AC just wasn’t very efficient most of the time. The grocery store wasn’t too bad, though near the registers (which, obviously were near the doors) it could get pretty hot…or cold depending on the weather outside.
The department store I worked in was bad on a normal day. The building was old and they wouldn’t redo the ac so it was always hot in the summer. Then once the ac out and out died. Thankfully our management team were humans and until it was fixed we were allowed to wear shorts to work and they set up those big round rubbermaid tubs with ice and had bottles of cold water for us so that we wouldn’t get sick from the heat.
Hehe… at my building, until they fixed it, one side of the office was sweltering and the other was frozen! They say they have it fixed now and it’s definitely a LOT better.
There’s one fairly consistent rule: you can’t keep everyone happy. At best, you might be able to find a setting that most inconveniences those people that you like the least.
I used to work in a bookstore in Hawai’i, and we’d often get people walking around in beach clothes who would complain about the air conditioning. We’d get guys in swim trunks and no shirt who would walk around shivering and whining about the cold temperature. Put on some clothes if you’re that cold.
Ugh, when I had my retail job, we couldn’t even control the temperature. The temp was controlled in some other state entirely and to boot, one year, we got hail so bad that it screwed up one of our units. I had company repairmen come out repeatedly only to be told that it would cost upwards of 6 grand to replace so the company “wasn’t going to.” (Evidently, we had 2 more units working but it still wasn’t enough to keep the place properly cool!)
Coworkers and customers alike bitched at me constantly about it during the summer and all I could tell them was that I’d called numerous times and they were welcome to do so themselves since I wasn’t getting results.
Hilariously enough, we had the opposite problem during the winters: Heat would never come on.
I wish we had any functioning AC in the kitchen. Last summer the record was 120F on the line at the saute station. I’m lucky, I work the pantry station (cold foods, salads and desserts), so it was only 110F on my end. Not looking forward to the Dog Days of Summer…
I have been in some smaller stores where the AC was more than cold enough as some of the employees (more so young women) were wearing their uniform soft shell or fleece jacket, especially if they were not doing enough physical work to keep warm. If you must use AC than make it say 21c and not what seems like say 10c or colder -_-
I work in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. Last summer, we hit records for the most rain and lowest temperatures experienced in our province on those dates/during a summer season. On the East coast, Canadian provinces were hitting record highs; corporate demanded our A/C temperatures match the settings back east! It was 12 degrees or lower inside our stores! Customers were complaining left and right but we couldn’t do anything about it because an outside company controlled our thermostats and they took orders directly from corporate! Ridiculous!
I’ve worked in places where the AC gets pretty freakin cold. Even dressed in uniform, wearing pants, I was getting chilled. I can’t imagine having it up that high is good for the electric bill.
almost sounds like a repeat.. same girl too, if I remember right. Except the tag line was something to the effect of the employees being comfortable because they were wearing normal clothes, and the punchline was that they would try to find the “customer” setting.
This was it. http://retailcomic.com/comics/june-19-2007/
I’ve always had the opposite experience. The A/C will be cranked all the way up so we employees are wearing sweaters and when we say that it’s too cold the customers will “correct” us and tell us “It’s COMFORTABLE.” Maybe it’s fine if you’re just in and out, but being in a refrigerated room for hours is not pleasant. I think anyone who needs it to be 55 degrees inside to be comfortable has medical issues they need to address.
If this customer knows ahead of time that the AC will be too high she ought to dress appropriately for it. Wear pants instead of shorts and have a jacket you can put on in the store. Or take your complaint to someone who can do something about it. Val only works there and has no control on how high the AC is.
Wha? You actually expect a self entitled customer to use logic?
The general health guide says that an AC should not be set more then 5 degrees Centigrade higher/lower them the ambiant temperature to avoid people getting sick.
Huh. Where I work, for the past 3 years “in an effort to help the environment” (IE: An effort to save money) they’ve kept the AC on low so it seems to hover around 78 degrees… and this is a Big Box Retailer!
We’ve had customers say “Wow… it’s cool in here compared to outside, but once you adjust, it’s actually not that cold at all… and I’m wearing shorts and a T-Shirt! I can’t imagine how hot you must be!”
I’ve literally taken to fanning my cashiers with a broken down cardboard box because it gets so hot at the front of the store near the entrance doors and the food area. I would KILL for a little “frozen on the inside” store action.
This is the case with me as well. I’m always volunteering to be the one to stock the cooler of freezer for this very reason.
I think that Creepy Customer Guy appreciates the cold AC and female customers in tank tops.
Grocery stores have a good reason for the AC to be set around 70F. The refrigeration and freezer units work most efficiently at that temperature. If you raise the AC, then the extra power needed for refrigeration is more than any savings on the AC.
THAT’S why it’s so cold in the grocery store.
It makes sense that the grocery store needs to keep food cold, and therefore has to keep the A/C high. I just wish more of them would invest in doors for all of the refrigerated areas to keep the cold air where it needs to be, on the food, not me.
Or the marketing people want the customers agitated so they move around more and don’t think too much.
It depends on the building too, all the retail/supermarkets I’ve worked in have been older buildings and the AC just wasn’t very efficient most of the time. The grocery store wasn’t too bad, though near the registers (which, obviously were near the doors) it could get pretty hot…or cold depending on the weather outside.
The department store I worked in was bad on a normal day. The building was old and they wouldn’t redo the ac so it was always hot in the summer. Then once the ac out and out died. Thankfully our management team were humans and until it was fixed we were allowed to wear shorts to work and they set up those big round rubbermaid tubs with ice and had bottles of cold water for us so that we wouldn’t get sick from the heat.
Hehe… at my building, until they fixed it, one side of the office was sweltering and the other was frozen! They say they have it fixed now and it’s definitely a LOT better.
There’s one fairly consistent rule: you can’t keep everyone happy. At best, you might be able to find a setting that most inconveniences those people that you like the least.
I used to work in a bookstore in Hawai’i, and we’d often get people walking around in beach clothes who would complain about the air conditioning. We’d get guys in swim trunks and no shirt who would walk around shivering and whining about the cold temperature. Put on some clothes if you’re that cold.
Finally, a strip in which the complaining customer is actually right.
Ugh, when I had my retail job, we couldn’t even control the temperature. The temp was controlled in some other state entirely and to boot, one year, we got hail so bad that it screwed up one of our units. I had company repairmen come out repeatedly only to be told that it would cost upwards of 6 grand to replace so the company “wasn’t going to.” (Evidently, we had 2 more units working but it still wasn’t enough to keep the place properly cool!)
Coworkers and customers alike bitched at me constantly about it during the summer and all I could tell them was that I’d called numerous times and they were welcome to do so themselves since I wasn’t getting results.
Hilariously enough, we had the opposite problem during the winters: Heat would never come on.
That place was never comfortable.
I wish we had any functioning AC in the kitchen. Last summer the record was 120F on the line at the saute station. I’m lucky, I work the pantry station (cold foods, salads and desserts), so it was only 110F on my end. Not looking forward to the Dog Days of Summer…