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.
People who work from home can do so without clothing and footwear, making heat less uncomfortable. Have the highest officials considered changing their dress regulations in the office?
"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.
We saw leadership in action historically in WW1. Leaders would send hundreds of thousands over the top to die in droves, slaughtered by machine guns, barbed wire and artillery. For the leaders, this only occurred to them as bloodless statistics. Their usual response was simply to try harder and shoot those accused of desertion.
Their is at least one account of a headquarters officer for General Haig who, on first visiting the front for the first time broke down in tears. He claimed that he had no idea how truly awful it was with soldiers horribly sick and injured in knee-deep water being shot at by snipers constantly.
Haig and his assorted officers NEVER came to the front and actually participated in the mass slaughter they orchestrated. Haig was no different than the indifference of German, Austrian, Russian, French generals to the misery they inflicted on those under their command.
And the wheel continues around the same "thinking" as those responsible for creating that hell of WW1. Nothing changes b/c the one's who created that war are still at the helm - it's merely the "current" generation still using the same methodology to maintain their own status as "superior" and "entitled" to use the peons as they see fit. Throw up.
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.
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.
You ignore the zeitgeist. Climate control is un-Green, shameful, a guilty pleasure. To indulge in more than is absolutely marginally necessary is wrongthink.
The Europeans haven't heard yet. Their elderly are dying by the thousands from the heat. There is a debate as to whether this is deliberate, or a side effect of their suicidal energy policy.
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.
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.
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.
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 , and are reporting back to their friends and relatives how much they love our attitude.
I live in Texas. If we EVER have a summer day with a high less than 90F (32C), we have cause to celebrate. Triple-digits F are common. I hate being hot, and I keep my central AC at home set to 70F (21C) (or lower) all day long throughout the summer. But every office building I’ve ever worked in has been even cooler than that. I always keep a light sweater handy at work during the summer.
lol I have had a heater under my desk at times too.
I saw a post on X yesterday in which a European was commenting on how hot it was going to be in Tucson — something like 112F I believe. He suggested that Americans should mind their own business and stop commenting on the heat wave in Europe because it’s hot in the US too. But it was also recently noted that more people die from heat-related causes in Europe than die from guns in the US, but the Europeans sure do love to bemoan gun violence in the US and share their opinions with us on that. And the thing about Tucson is that people there will go to work on a 112F day (driving their air conditioned cars) and be supremely comfortable under the AC (or even don a sweater or turn on a space heater), then they’ll stop at the grocery store or the mall or the gym after work, where it will also be well air conditioned, and then they’ll go home to their nice cool house.
The World Cup European visitors marvel at 'air conditioning' now makes more sense. As does their wonder at how things are so large & run so smoothly in the U.S. Anyone who is still unaware, Americans come to play, hard. America's got 'the best stuff' cause we WANT the best stuff - for everybody in the country. Throw capitalism in the mix and you've got the recipe for American greatness.
The only times things are subpar is when the bureaucrats get involved.
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!!
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.
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.
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
"Why would they not have designed for the current scenario?"
Nice pick-up of that contradiction! "We're all going to die of heat" vs "Let's not actually design anything to mitigate that".
So, why? Possible answers:
1. They're not actually capable of "running a solar panel in a heatwave" - a new version of the old "piss-up/brewery" trope, inspired by the UK green energy system last week;
2. Actually doing something effective is not what they're there for;
3. Much better to let the bad things happen, then blame the little people: "It wouldn't be so hot anyway if you hadn't had an extra shower back in 2023 / had a barbecue / put a plastic bag in the wrong bin one time".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
‘Berlaymonstre’ was kommissioned in 1967 to house 3000 administrators, and closed in 1991 for 13 years to remove 3000 administrators along with1,500 tonnes of asbestos by work people kitted out in special suits, gloves and even underwear (!).
The revised Berlaymont (named after Augustinian nun's convent that stood on the site) cost €670 million to refit, which took over 13 years - re-opening in 2004. Once again 3000 administrators moved in, with 2200 offices and 241,515 square-metres of floor space.
The nerve-centre of the Kommission is at the top of the tower, on the 13th floor, where the Komplet Kollege of Kommissioners ('KKK'?) meet. It has an exclusive life directly to the ground floor. Queen vd Leyen has two offices, one official (for visitors) and another one for private work (see Pfizer). The Queen also has two dining rooms: an official, 50-seater one, for entertaining (complete with interpreters’ booths: presumably in case there are any problems over the menu), and a smaller, private one (see Pfizer, again).
The temperature throughout the building will be kept at a constant 21° centigrade - by kommand.
Offices have moveable partitions which will be adjusted according to a hierarchical window and floor-space system that reflects seniority. For example, a commissioner will probably have six to seven windows, a director-general five, a director four and a head of unit, three. Plebs? 1 window.
Large amounts of glass and wood were used in the renovation. Environmental campaigners Greenpeace declared the site a “forest crime scene”, claiming that illegally logged wood had been used in its refurbishment.
The Kommission used to rent Berlaymont from the Belgian state. Legal changes mean it could own property by the 1990s. The Commission contributed €503 million to the renovation costs, buying the building structure for €50 million and the land for a symbolic €1.
The building has 45 lifts, 12 escalators, 4 car parks for 1,223 vehicles, 6 internal gardens, 70 interpretation booths and a 900-seat self-service restaurant, serving up to 2,700 meals a day.
Moments like these are necessary so that people can see for themselves what's behind the fancy climate talk about caring for the environment. It's all about their comfort, their profits, and their do-gooding, no matter how much everyone else suffers.
This is how you tell the difference between leaders and parasitic autocrats.
Leaders would have shut their own A/C off first.
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.
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
"Onsite work, suits and ties still mandatory."
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.
People who work from home can do so without clothing and footwear, making heat less uncomfortable. Have the highest officials considered changing their dress regulations in the office?
Leaders would have commissioned a building with adequate heating and cooling. After all they themselves proclaim a climate emergency.
"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.
I think it was intended as a comment about what real *leadership* looks like, as opposed to merely "being in charge".
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?
We saw leadership in action historically in WW1. Leaders would send hundreds of thousands over the top to die in droves, slaughtered by machine guns, barbed wire and artillery. For the leaders, this only occurred to them as bloodless statistics. Their usual response was simply to try harder and shoot those accused of desertion.
Their is at least one account of a headquarters officer for General Haig who, on first visiting the front for the first time broke down in tears. He claimed that he had no idea how truly awful it was with soldiers horribly sick and injured in knee-deep water being shot at by snipers constantly.
Haig and his assorted officers NEVER came to the front and actually participated in the mass slaughter they orchestrated. Haig was no different than the indifference of German, Austrian, Russian, French generals to the misery they inflicted on those under their command.
And the wheel continues around the same "thinking" as those responsible for creating that hell of WW1. Nothing changes b/c the one's who created that war are still at the helm - it's merely the "current" generation still using the same methodology to maintain their own status as "superior" and "entitled" to use the peons as they see fit. Throw up.
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.
Well, there's that.
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.
Leaders would have managed to get one of the most basic infrastructure things in a building working correctly
You ignore the zeitgeist. Climate control is un-Green, shameful, a guilty pleasure. To indulge in more than is absolutely marginally necessary is wrongthink.
Hey, I thought 'climate change' was debunked?? Guess the EU Commissioners didn't get the memo.
The Europeans haven't heard yet. Their elderly are dying by the thousands from the heat. There is a debate as to whether this is deliberate, or a side effect of their suicidal energy policy.
And their advice just make things worse. Closed windows during the day, hang damp clothes inside in a fucking damp country.
No way this thing is not deliberate, or they just figured out a "desirable"(for them) side effect and decided to double down on it.
I think these are the same ppl who think their crap doesn't stink.
Oh, I've no doubt this is deliberate! 🤨
Get it? They're the prime bunkers!
🎯🤣
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.
George Patton was always with his men ..often in front
Power doesn't operate like that.
My thoughts exactly. I need to watch Death of Stalin again.
Great movie!!
How Marie Antoinette-like of her.
'Let them eat cake' anagrams to:
- meek cattle heat
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.
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.
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 , and are reporting back to their friends and relatives how much they love our attitude.
I live in Texas. If we EVER have a summer day with a high less than 90F (32C), we have cause to celebrate. Triple-digits F are common. I hate being hot, and I keep my central AC at home set to 70F (21C) (or lower) all day long throughout the summer. But every office building I’ve ever worked in has been even cooler than that. I always keep a light sweater handy at work during the summer.
I had th@t same experience..my secretary actually had a small space heater under her desk
I’ve done that too at times.
LOL! Texas is even more American than the rest of the country.
lol I have had a heater under my desk at times too.
I saw a post on X yesterday in which a European was commenting on how hot it was going to be in Tucson — something like 112F I believe. He suggested that Americans should mind their own business and stop commenting on the heat wave in Europe because it’s hot in the US too. But it was also recently noted that more people die from heat-related causes in Europe than die from guns in the US, but the Europeans sure do love to bemoan gun violence in the US and share their opinions with us on that. And the thing about Tucson is that people there will go to work on a 112F day (driving their air conditioned cars) and be supremely comfortable under the AC (or even don a sweater or turn on a space heater), then they’ll stop at the grocery store or the mall or the gym after work, where it will also be well air conditioned, and then they’ll go home to their nice cool house.
Right, 4 months straight of at least 90F highs
Lmao. Yep. 'Merica! 🇺🇸
Lol 😂
Last year in California I got a notice “ please conserve water “ .
I went directly to the sprinkler system and incresed the time on each station .unfortunately my wife caught on when she saw mushrooms on the lawn
The World Cup European visitors marvel at 'air conditioning' now makes more sense. As does their wonder at how things are so large & run so smoothly in the U.S. Anyone who is still unaware, Americans come to play, hard. America's got 'the best stuff' cause we WANT the best stuff - for everybody in the country. Throw capitalism in the mix and you've got the recipe for American greatness.
The only times things are subpar is when the bureaucrats get involved.
bureaucracy sprouts where ignorance and unwillingness come together..
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!!
ROTFL
“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.
“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?
And, these are supposed to be first world countries?
Typical socialist attitude, 'take from thee and give to me'.
Poor bastards in Riyad, wonder how they keep their AC working at 51⁰C?
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.
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.
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
"Why would they not have designed for the current scenario?"
Nice pick-up of that contradiction! "We're all going to die of heat" vs "Let's not actually design anything to mitigate that".
So, why? Possible answers:
1. They're not actually capable of "running a solar panel in a heatwave" - a new version of the old "piss-up/brewery" trope, inspired by the UK green energy system last week;
2. Actually doing something effective is not what they're there for;
3. Much better to let the bad things happen, then blame the little people: "It wouldn't be so hot anyway if you hadn't had an extra shower back in 2023 / had a barbecue / put a plastic bag in the wrong bin one time".
Wonder what it's like in the winter?
They can afford industrial-grade refrigeration units.
An the EU cannot?
25.7C??? That's 78.26F. My house A/C is set at 80F and I feel fine.
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.
Humidity levels are the real killer.
Almost no one turns up in a suit in London these days. I regret to note.
And heat gets trapped in certain areas making some rooms more uncomfortable than others.
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.
I'm always happy to set the thermostat to whatever my guests want, but whatever.
Same. That's fair.
It took me a second, but I see the toaster. Does it come with a lever to pop the burnt toast out?
Mr Jean-Claude Drunkeur, former Kommission El-Presidente, was a bit fried when he left the building (hic).
Let them eat cake!
Hot cake.
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.
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.
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.
this is the way
And their computer hardware is going to suffer from the selective heat, as well. Oh well.
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.
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!
"Let them eat their sweat."
Ursula V.
von der Leyen’s favorite American rock band must be The Thirteenth Floor Elevators”.
I thought it was "Cold As Ice"!?!?! 🤣🥶🥵
She needs the AC because she’s “Hot Blooded”. Either way, she’s fond of Foreigner(s) 🤣
"You going miss me, Babe! You didn't realize . . ."
‘Berlaymonstre’ was kommissioned in 1967 to house 3000 administrators, and closed in 1991 for 13 years to remove 3000 administrators along with1,500 tonnes of asbestos by work people kitted out in special suits, gloves and even underwear (!).
The revised Berlaymont (named after Augustinian nun's convent that stood on the site) cost €670 million to refit, which took over 13 years - re-opening in 2004. Once again 3000 administrators moved in, with 2200 offices and 241,515 square-metres of floor space.
The nerve-centre of the Kommission is at the top of the tower, on the 13th floor, where the Komplet Kollege of Kommissioners ('KKK'?) meet. It has an exclusive life directly to the ground floor. Queen vd Leyen has two offices, one official (for visitors) and another one for private work (see Pfizer). The Queen also has two dining rooms: an official, 50-seater one, for entertaining (complete with interpreters’ booths: presumably in case there are any problems over the menu), and a smaller, private one (see Pfizer, again).
The temperature throughout the building will be kept at a constant 21° centigrade - by kommand.
Offices have moveable partitions which will be adjusted according to a hierarchical window and floor-space system that reflects seniority. For example, a commissioner will probably have six to seven windows, a director-general five, a director four and a head of unit, three. Plebs? 1 window.
Large amounts of glass and wood were used in the renovation. Environmental campaigners Greenpeace declared the site a “forest crime scene”, claiming that illegally logged wood had been used in its refurbishment.
The Kommission used to rent Berlaymont from the Belgian state. Legal changes mean it could own property by the 1990s. The Commission contributed €503 million to the renovation costs, buying the building structure for €50 million and the land for a symbolic €1.
The building has 45 lifts, 12 escalators, 4 car parks for 1,223 vehicles, 6 internal gardens, 70 interpretation booths and a 900-seat self-service restaurant, serving up to 2,700 meals a day.
Life is tough.
Moments like these are necessary so that people can see for themselves what's behind the fancy climate talk about caring for the environment. It's all about their comfort, their profits, and their do-gooding, no matter how much everyone else suffers.