Hot and Cold

 My current work has me often in positions where people look to me for a solution. And not just for things in my scope but for everything. Their taxes. Someone not flushing in the staff bathroom. The rumor on who will get fired. So, it is the kind of look people throw at a bursting beacon on the horizon in the epic fantasy movie.

Behold, there is the light and fury of Gondor! What shall it bring to this Helm's Deep!?

The worse is temperature. It is too hot or cold in my room. Our school is tired pile of bricks going on 90 years with most everything being original save not in the charming way, like a Butterfly Gold Pyrex bowl, but in the annoying way. Like leaded gasoline.

Too hot and there is a dwindling shimmer on the single pane glass above the radiators. I have one teacher with big statement olive wood eyes who will say "I'm so hot! Please help!" and I think it is a trap. "Yeah you are!" I joke and want to drop the cymbal clap bit. Ba Dum Dsh! This works much better over the work chat. Where maybe she will hit me back with a brief heart/like icon and just make my day. Or a LOL face which is fine but anything better than a simple thumbs up which feels so clinical. In person it is awkward and plodding as I bite my lip and try to hide behind the gewgaws on my desk. And she nervously strokes down the end of her ponytail asking "Is there like a thermostat? Can the custodian look?" Does playing with her hair mean she is nervous? Frustrated? Confused? By me perhaps? So smitten is she!? Or is it because she is close to heat stroke death? Likely the latter.

The custodian could look and just affirm that everything is fine. It is not that bad. In that teacher's room there is nothing for him to draw his ire to so its just fine. Across the hall it is the bad insulation I had installed three years ago. Of course, that is it. Always ready with not just an answer but THE answer. Something else. Just deal or do as I say. 

Too cold and its weak yet threating rimes of ice forming along the vintage window frames. In some spots the walls are so porous that the draft moves paper around behind you making for terrifying backgrounds on Zoom calls "Excuse me. I'm sorry but I have to ask. What is making that drawing on your bulletin board move?"

"Does this get hot?" And people will send me pictures of their radiator registers via text. 

I would hope so, if not dress in layers. If the register is pristine and still painted in the tepid mud puddle brown then likely not. They cut the steam to it. If it is beat and covered in the rainbow of melted crayons then yes, it should get cooking. 

If you are too cold maybe I will sneak a space heater in your room. Depends on if I trust you enough to use it, turn it off at the end of day. Too hot and here is a fan or i guess turn on your AC and defy everything. One day the boiler will be at max power and every AC and fan will be on and the whole space, the whole red brick lump of entropy, will collapse into a singularity of the right temperature.