I beat hot flushes at work by freezing out my colleagues

Claudia Connell discusses difficulties of office temperatures during menopause READ MORE: Am I just greedy or is the 'Fatso Gene' to blame?

After last week’s chilling Arctic freeze, we’re now set for weather to rival the Riviera. So are we turning the heating down? On or off?

While predictions of unseasonably balmy days this week may be a welcome relief for some of us, there’s nothing quite like a fluctuating temperature gauge to ignite a row about optimum comfort levels.

And while this might be a perennial source of conflict between couples at home, in my experience nothing can get quite as heated as a row about the temperature at work.

And now it’s official.

The Government is encouraging employers to sign up to the Menopause Workplace Pledge, promising to help menopausal colleagues wherever possible — including recommendations for cooler office temperatures.

The Government is encouraging employers to sign up to the Menopause Workplace Pledge, promising to help menopausal colleagues wherever possible — including recommendations for cooler office temperatures (file photo)

The Labour Party — eager to secure the hot flush vote — has gone a step further, proposing paid menopause leave and temperature-controlled ‘cool zones’ at work.

But while the thought of herding a bunch of middle-aged women into a specially designated corner of the office — near the fridge, perhaps? — might at first sound a bit unhinged, I actually think they might be on to something.

Because, there was once a time when I was quite the office hottie.

Unfortunately, not in the sense that everyone was captivated by my dazzling beauty and killer figure. No, in my case it was more literal.

When I was in the grips of menopause, a combination of out-of-control hot flushes and the oppressive office central heating made me feel like a chicken on a barbecue.

As surprised as I am to find myself siding with the snowflakes, if we’d had such cool zones when I was going through the change, I wouldn’t have been driven to commit the sneaky act of sabotage that I did — and that my colleagues still talk of to this day.

My journey to work was unbearable. During the winter, London Tube carriages are heated to sauna-like levels but often too packed to be able to remove and carry a coat.

Nothing can get quite as heated as a row about the temperature at work (file photo)

I would arrive at my desk a damp, frizzy, dehydrated mess. And the huge open-plan office provided no respite to a woman who had yet to succumb to HRT. We sat on large communal desks next to windows that didn’t open while heat pumped out from ceiling vents.

The majority of staff were perfectly happy with the temperature, a few complained that it was too cold (there’s always one, isn’t there?). But I found it unbearable.

Despite stripping down to a T-shirt and having an electric fan at my terminal, it was stifling and I couldn’t focus on my work.

The temperature was centrally controlled in some boiler room deep in the bowels of the building. Every now and then a chap in overalls would appear, wave a thermometer around and disappear.

After cornering him (the poor man was probably terrified of the raging, red-faced lunatic who accosted him by a lift), I learned that it was possible to alter the temperature in individual sections, via a wall thermostat hidden away in a dark corner. Aha!

The next evening, while working late, I saw that the thermostat was set to 23C (73F). What were we? Lizards? I wasn’t having that.

I turned the temperature down to a more acceptable 20 c (68 f). But would that be cool enough in a room with a lot of bodies and no natural ventilation? Best make it 17C (63F). Then again, that was washing-line drying weather. This internal negotiation went on for several minutes until I settled on 14C (15F). Job done.

The next morning, I arrived to be greeted by colleagues sitting in coats and woolly hats.

‘The heating is broken,’ one said to me, glumly.

‘Oh dear,’ I replied. Maintenance men were summoned, they got on ladders and examined vents but — to my relief — didn’t look at the wall thermostat.

Finally, comfortable for the first time in months, I switched off my desk fan and enjoyed the blissful cool.

It’s very easy to get warmer when you feel the cold — you just pile on more layers. It’s a different story when you’re hot and bothered (file image)

Over the next few days, colleagues began turning up in thermal body warmers and fingerless gloves as I rolled my eyes. What a bunch of drama queens.

When a whole team of engineers with stepladders appeared, I quietly turned the heating back up — lowering it again the second they’d gone.

My wicked ruse went on for several weeks until one pesky engineer beat me to the thermostat and declared, ‘Someone has set this to 14C!’

Busted. I confessed to howls of outrage. But I wasn’t sorry.

My reasoning is that it’s very easy to get warmer when you feel the cold — you just pile on more layers. It’s a different story when you’re hot and bothered. Other than jumping naked into the fountain in the foyer (which I suspect may have been frowned upon by management), there was nothing I could do.

From tea slurpers and throat clearers and pen stealers, there will always be annoying work colleagues and their habits to contend with.

But if ‘cool zones’ come into being, then at least office hotties like me will no longer be driven to Traitors-level subterfuge.