124 Comments
User's avatar
Henrybowman's avatar

This is how you tell the difference between leaders and parasitic autocrats.

Leaders would have shut their own A/C off first.

eugyppius's avatar

absolutely, especially because a lot of these guys work on their own schedules anyway. if it's too hot they can just work from home or whatever, who's going to tell them not to? the employees meanwhile have to show up, they have no choice.

Warmek's avatar

"Onsite work, suits and ties still mandatory."

Rikard's avatar

You know, if the bosses really wanted to stick it to their underlings, they'd order "whool or polyester suits mandatory".

Plus warning people that bad BO counts as a micro-aggression and will lead to loss of pay.

EppingBlogger's avatar

Leaders would have commissioned a building with adequate heating and cooling. After all they themselves proclaim a climate emergency.

mzlizzi's avatar

And sent everyone to their dachas for the rest of the week.

Lydia Lozano's avatar

My thoughts exactly. I need to watch Death of Stalin again.

Colin Hunt's avatar

"Leaders would have shut their own A/C off first."

No, that never happens. During the worst of Stalin's Proletariat Paradise, the workers lived through mass starvation and outright mass murder (Holodomor). All the while, the favoured apparatchiks under Stalin all had their luxury dachas. The Pigs on Animal Farm suffered none of the hardships of the rest of the animals being used for hard labour.

Socialism is about privilege for the ruling class, always. The cost in blood and misery for those they rule is irrelevant. And if you disagree, it's off to the Killing Fields for you.

Warmek's avatar

I think it was intended as a comment about what real *leadership* looks like, as opposed to merely "being in charge".

Carol Tencza's avatar

That's not leadership. It's another one of those "let them eat cake" structures. We all know the history of that, don't we?

Not Me's avatar

I grew up in southern US WITHOUT AC. We eventually got a window unit AC BUT HEAT RISES AND THE COOL AIR STAYS LOW. WE ALL SLEPT DOWNSTAIRS AND SOMETIMES OUTSIDE.

Esborogardius Antoniopolus's avatar

Leaders would have managed to get one of the most basic infrastructure things in a building working correctly

Henrybowman's avatar

You ignore the zeitgeist. Climate control is un-Green, shameful, a guilty pleasure. To indulge in more than is absolutely marginally necessary is wrongthink.

Mark Bob's avatar

You just don’t understand. The upper levels are doing the most important DEI, border elimination, and power plant decommissioning work. They need AC so they can stay focused in the ruin they cause.

Lydia Lozano's avatar

Power doesn't operate like that.

Mark Bob's avatar

Leaders would have recognized that AC increases productivity and long ago planned for ever increasing energy supplies. Oh, sorry, I forgot - they did and built nuclear power plants. Ok, then, real leaders in the current generation of mentally illness would not have shut them down.

Fabes55's avatar

How Marie Antoinette-like of her.

Alistair Penbroke's avatar

Hilarious that they try to disguise this as some sort of malfunction. I've never heard of an AC malfunction that is caused by heat and mysteriously only affects plebs.

Who wants to bet this is eventually used by the Commission as a demonstration of their virtue?

Zero empathy for the people working there in the heat though. It's like feudalism, you say? Really! No way would I have expected feudalism from the unelected power center of Europe.

Rikard's avatar

On probability, the system installed is not up to the task of cooling all the offices in use at the same time, when it is this hot. Typically when political committees buy systems they use some kind of mean or median value for "normal" and give nary a thought to things like outliers or redundancy or "what if"-type scenarios.

I've experienced this many times during my career as a teacher here in Sweden, that various systems - from purely logistical/admin-stuff to physical systems such as elevators only work properly under "normal" (meaning statistically average) conditions. One example was a school where we had had an elevator for handicapped students installed. However:

1) it could only hold one person in a wheelchair at a time, with no room for anyone or anything else larger than a purse

2) the regs for retarded students that also had to use wheelchairs stated they had to be accompanied by a caretaker when using elevators

Which meant the elevator was always shut off, and that we had to re-do schedules so that the handicapped students only had classes in ground-level classrooms.

And bureaucratic stupidity is a function of the size of the bureaucracy.

Danno's avatar

In the US we gleefully air-condition entire football stadiums to subarctic temperatures and then roast whole pigs inside over white-hot coals for hours before the games. I'm happy to note that many of the Euros over here for the World Cup tournament have witnessed our wonderful excess are reporting back to their friends and relatives how much they love our attitude.

Curtis's avatar

Lmao. Yep. 'Merica! 🇺🇸

jan van ruth's avatar

bureaucracy sprouts where ignorance and unwillingness come together..

Chris Bieber's avatar

Shoveling coal into the engine of Big Brother Brussels..."helping" tyranny & getting paid for it!! Very 1930's Germany and Russia- look where THAT led!!

Diane Logan's avatar

Typical socialist attitude, 'take from thee and give to me'.

Karl's avatar

“Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.”

Umm... so why do they have A/C in the first place? If you're not going to use it when it's HOT?

Brett's avatar

Poor bastards in Riyad, wonder how they keep their AC working at 51⁰C?

Warmek's avatar

Well, they would have designed for it, for one thing.

I would guess this building has a ludicrously under-spec'd A/C system, to comply with some mandate about "Green Design" or some similar BS. I could easily see it not being rated for continuous use, or be capable of functioning properly above a certain temperature. Could be an ineffective refrigerant, that can't manage a sufficient thermal differential.

The Saudis would not have done anything so foolish.

Brett's avatar

Why would they not have designed for the current scenario? They have been fear porning about how we are all going to die from ever changing threats for the last 40 years .. the latest scam being that we are going to fry to death.

Warmek's avatar

Yes, but using A/C isn't *virtuous*, you see. And specifying an adequate A/C solution may be against some set of EU regulations. It'd be a bit awkward if the EU headquarters wasn't following those.

I admit, I'm just *guessing*. But that is my guess. :D

Carol Tencza's avatar

Wonder what it's like in the winter?

Danno's avatar

They can afford industrial-grade refrigeration units.

Brett's avatar

An the EU cannot?

Daniel R's avatar

25.7C??? That's 78.26F. My house A/C is set at 80F and I feel fine.

eugyppius's avatar

I'm writing this from my 27C apartment and it's fine, but then again I don't have to show up in a suit or anything.

Charlotte's avatar

Humidity levels are the real killer.

EppingBlogger's avatar

Almost no one turns up in a suit in London these days. I regret to note.

Wise Old Woman in the Woods's avatar

And heat gets trapped in certain areas making some rooms more uncomfortable than others.

Danno's avatar

I guess I won't be coming to visit you anytime soon. Mine is set at 69F, which is 20.6 C. That's what I'm comfortable with and I don't really give a damn how much it costs nor do I believe it will affect the climate.

Daniel R's avatar

I'm always happy to set the thermostat to whatever my guests want, but whatever.

Perry Mason's avatar

And, these are supposed to be first world countries?

KurtOverley's avatar

Let them eat cake!

Eric Mader's avatar

“It’s like feudalism,” a Commission official working on a lower level … told POLITICO on Friday …

No. It is precisely NOT like feudalism. Under feudalism, your feudal lord protected you from invaders.

Wise Old Woman in the Woods's avatar

It took me a second, but I see the toaster. Does it come with a lever to pop the burnt toast out?

Andrew Marsh's avatar

Mr Jean-Claude Drunkeur, former Kommission El-Presidente, was a bit fried when he left the building (hic).

Tony DeMarco's avatar

"Let them eat their sweat."

Ursula V.

Nicholas Edward Bednarski, MD's avatar

von der Leyen’s favorite American rock band must be The Thirteenth Floor Elevators”.

Chris Bieber's avatar

I thought it was "Cold As Ice"!?!?! 🤣🥶🥵

LJ's avatar

25.7 degrees C is 78 degrees F. I’m in Texas. Are they truly complaining? To save money I LIKE 78 degrees.

I agree it’s hypocritical to AC the brats at the top while the peons get 78 F and i have zero sympathy for the EU top brass. But still, give me a break. My house is set to 77 right now and with a cheap fan I can make it even at 79-80. And have when money is tight.

Not sympathetic dudes. You get used to it.

I hope Ursula sweats her little tushy off.

eugyppius's avatar

to be clear, it is the Commissioner brass who get 78F temperatures, it's apparently significantly hotter for the employees. they sent an upper-floor staffer around to say "well, it's actually kind of warm for us too even with AC" as damage control.

Rikard's avatar

If I had been expected to do office-work in 30C or more, and had been ordered not to use the Ac, in a building seemingly designed to get as hot as possible, and the bosses got to keep the AC on, and they then sent some schmuck around to mouth off something like that - well, just prepare a cell at Spandau is all I'm saying.

Lydia Lozano's avatar

And their computer hardware is going to suffer from the selective heat, as well. Oh well.

LJ's avatar

Makes more sense, now they have my sympathy. Sincerely. Above approx 79 it gets really much more difficult to experience. I can manage it but it’s not fun. Above about 82 it starts getting much worse.

Martyn's avatar

For reasons that I cannot explain or even quite fathom, when I first read your last sentence, “tushy” was not the word that registered in my mind. I’m feeling slightly nauseous from the misreading!

mzlizzi's avatar
3hEdited

It’s “like feudalism,” a Commission official working on a lower level of the Berlaymont . . .

Oh, so you’re only now copping to this?

Will you learn your lesson and leave to find real work?

Or will you forget about your crap position in life once your floor’s AC gets switched on?

Lydia Lozano's avatar

Not feudalism. It is the Soviet system of nomenklatura.

James Schwartz's avatar

I’m shocked someone didn’t chain up the exit doors and begin shooting. Should this keep up…wait for it?

Chris Bieber's avatar

I thought firearms are illegal in Belgium?

Andrew Marsh's avatar

Only for those abiding by the law.