SITREP for the LLER as summer begins

With the unofficial start of summer upon us, here is the SITREP for my LLER.

SITREP - LLER - 29 May 2011 - 1730 Zulu - CONUS - An Engineer in "modern" office building

After a month with no evidence that the A/C was working in my office, and one week of brutal heat, the room hit 93 degrees with a relative humidity of > 45% on Wednesday. The official word came out just in time for the holiday weekend.

"The AC is broken, some ancient, obsolete and hard to repair part died, and it will take 4 weeks to repair it. We are meeting with people to figure out we should do"

OK, the official e-mail may have been more formally written then the version I gave above, but you get the idea. Prior to receiving the official word, I had been asking my source why the AC was not on during the month of May and all I heard is that "they are working on it."

Now that I have the official word, I feel much better.

So, what does one do when faced with the fact that it is June and there is a real good chance that your office, which has lots of glass, but only one window that opens ~ 3 inches, will have no AC for a month? If the forecast were highs in the low 70's or high 60's with humidity less than 20%, I would remain calm. If you know it will be in the 80's most of the time, and the 90's on some days, the humidity will be at least 50%, and you have to work in a room with three computers and all of their heat-producing accessories, it is time to sound the alarm and put together a plan.

If this had been my first time in a LLER, I would not panic and I would assume that the people in charge will handle the situation.

However, having endured such a situation before, I busted out my credit card and ordered a portable AC unit within hours of receiving the official word. My plan is to move the unit into my office, after hours and as covertly as possible, install it and hope that it does not trip a breaker. Using the "it is better to ask for forgiveness than permission or approval" approach, with any luck, I should be in good shape come Wednesday or Thursday.

V/R
Bobo Nance
Occupant of the LLER