Welcome again to JJNN for Sunday July 20th, 2008. Today I will be looking at what Japanese people do to be able to work during the summer.
As I always say, Japanese people are always thinking about the environment. A few years ago the government came up with a plan they dubbed "cool biz." The basic idea is that all of the air conditioners in all the offices governmental buildings across the country were suppose to be turned up to 28 degrees Celsius (82.4F). That means that people have to work in hot rooms all summer long, so the workers were all told that they didn't need to wear ties or other types of clothes like that.
Well, I guess that is good for the environment in the end, but according to this piece of news cool biz is not all good. It turns out that for every degree over 25 degrees Celsius workers' efficiency drops by 2 percent. That means at 28 degrees efficiency had dropped a whole 6 percent. That doesn't sound like a lot of lost work, but in the end it could mean the difference between success and failure for a project at work.
I know when I am working at the city hall it is always hard to concentrate at 28 degrees Celsius. It is really asking too much to do anything productive at that temperature with that kind of humidity. I like the idea of being able to help save the environment and all, but there are better ways to do it than making people suffer. The article mentions that fans work to help keep people productive, but fans are not allowed in my work place or in most governmental buildings unless there is no air conditioning at all.
Any way, it is now time for the word of the day. Today's word is 冷房(れいぼう). It is pronounced reibou and means air conditioner. I am sitting here at my computer with my air conditioner set to 25 degrees Celsius. Perfect in every way.
That's it for today. See you next time at JJNN.
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