Shanghai'd

Air Conditioning Broken.

This morning, I arrived at work to find the electricity off in the office ... again. This happens about once a months, but rarely lasts for more than 15 minutes, after which time a maintenance worker arrives, jiggles some wires, flips a circuit breaker or two and inexplicably the juice is back on.

What does this have to do with kong tiao huai le? My post this morning was going to just be about the minor inconvenience of the power, with the conclusion that it could certainly be worse ... I could be in India, right?

Then it got worse.

An email from the HR department popped up in my inbox (in Chinese) but even with my admittedly limited Chinese reading ability I could get the gist. Today, the kong tiao huai le. Middle of August, 12th floor, hundreds of PCs, no air flow. You can do the math. I spent the rest of the day sitting in a cast of my own ass sweat, trying to get some work done. Fortunately, in a move of managerial brilliance, Sam saved the day by springing for afternoon popsicles for the whole office.