A time for change

One of those little traditions of Japan is that summer and winter time are mandated by calendar dates, rather than the weather. After the venal equinox Japan is officially in summer mode, after the autumnal one in winter mode. Shops change their layouts and stock, clerks change their warm woolen uniforms for light cotton ones, even time tables may change.

As I remarked before, these recent years the weather has become increasingly erratic, and though we had a few delightfully warm spring days this last week it is far from summer-y; evenings are still mighty cold and from one day to the next there will be frosty winds and rainstorms. I pity the poor shopkeepers having to wear their light uniforms in such weather conditions simply because the system demands it.

I had been looking forward to this equinox as that means our communal building will finally switch on its air-conditioner again. They don’t care if people are freezing or sweating in their workplace, before the equinox the central heating is on full blast, afterwards the air conditioner. It’s the way thing are done. These last few weeks our office has been slowly getting increasingly warm. By three in the afternoon, thanks to a mass of bodies working away at their keyboards and a bank of computers whirring away happily, conditions become uncomfortable. The windows are opened, the door to the fire escape propped open with an empty graphics card box, fans switched on. But it’s no use; the central heating and the sun shining on the flat roof all contribute to a musky, dizzying warmth that make me sleepy and gives me a massive headache by 5, still hours before I can leave for home.

But is our office in line with the times? Apparently not. After the midweek holiday to celebrate the coming of spring the central heating is happily continuing its onslaught. I wear a pull-over and thick coat to work but have to strip off as much as possible on the work-floor lest my clothes get drenched in sweat. These are hardly ideal working conditions, and things will deteriorate even more until the building’s supervisor finally decides it’s time to flip the switch, at which point we’ll have a few cold weeks until the weather catches up, which is infinitely preferable to the heat.

All my gripes with work are aggravated by the warmth. Lunchbox smells become worse and seem to linger around longer. Unwashed colleagues stink even worse than usual. The dusty environment gets even dustier as fans circulate the warm air, rather than cool the workers. Stacks of papers on messy desks get blown about and scattered periodically. Low motivation turns into downright apathy as everybody turns into a warm zombie by mid-afternoon, sit back, sigh heavily and complain loudly about how damn warm it is here. And my aforementioned headaches can’t be suppressed by coffee as any hot drink just makes things worse and even the bottled water which comes out of the vending machine ice cold turns into lukewarm spit after keeping it on your desk for a while. And due to the open windows and doors every police siren or ambulance, which seem to be in abundance around our office, starts everyone as they noisily screech past. The widespread hay fever that seems to blight Japan too doesn’t benefit from the open windows as colleagues sneeze with loud grunts every other minute.

I am praying for the air-conditioner by now, and I’m not even a religious person. I hope Monday will herald in summer time at our office, a few days late, as more weeks of this heat will surely drive me to insanity. Maybe I should have a quiet word with our building’s supervisor before I lash out and hurt somebody.