Today, I genuinely missed my train stop. This has been coming for a while, but the question of the day in the local newspaper to stimulate one’s thoughts have just gotten so wonderful and immersive that I was just thinking too hard. We got to Capital Station, and then the train started going back, and there’s me sitting there like a fool. I had to get off and run to get to work on time, and then I arrived late for the briefing on our latest air con crisis. The building hasn’t had cooling for three days and it’s the middle of Summer. Workers are angry and management won’t pay for the proper air conditioning service. Canberra is forecast for a week over temperatures above 35 and the workers are furious. Apparently everyone has been getting very angry letters from staff who’ve heard that they’re not getting air conditioning repaired any time soon. They wonder why they’re not getting free air con just because they live in a capital city.
I find the whole thing upsetting, Strangly, it tied into the question of the day, which was ‘What’s the worst case of entitlement you’ve ever seen from your generation?” An innocent question, but it really made me think because I often complain about entitlement from the younger generation and this was definitely a case of holding up the looking glass. And when I actually thought about it, the looking glass displayed quite a disturbing image indeed. I just got to work today and there were quite a few letters and emails from the team, demanding that we get the air conditioning fixed. Just because we live in Canberra and it’s currently in a heatwave doesn’t mean they’re entitled to anything! That’s quite silly, and very entitled, to put it into a word. Air conditioning is wonderful, but you still have to sort these things out yourself. Air conditioning repair companies based in Canberra are of the highest-quality and I can understand why they’d expect a level of service. It would be terrible for the companies bottom line if they caved in to all demands by employees. I suppose the heat wave is making people think silly thoughts.
That said, I don’t think it’s entitled to want air conditioning on the trains. Those are public spaces, and I think part of my stupor this morning was the advance of heatstroke.