Bus Etiquette - A very British problem

[Samson]

You're seriously telling us that women wear shorts and t-shirts in the offices over there, and nothing over top of them?

Equivalent amount of insulation, and sometimes exactly shorts and tshirt. It does not rain absolutely all the time in the UK . This comes up more in the summer than the winter.

 

[Catharsis]

Wouldn't two open windows lead to a big draft, if the bus or train is moving fast? I seem to remember only one window usually being open on buses, but I could be misremembering..

Well there's a draft anyway - again this is just anecdotal but I remember instances where irritating airflow or noise caused by an open window was solved by someone else on the other side of the carriage opening a second window.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Equivalent amount of insulation, and sometimes exactly shorts and tshirt. It does not rain absolutely all the time in the UK . This comes up more in the summer than the winter.

Shorts and t-shirt in an office? I could understand if it was an employees-only area where no member of the public could see or no clients went.

Or maybe if it was at a gym or even the wildlife interpretation centre I used to work at, where shorts were part of the interpreters' uniforms in summer, if they chose. If they did, it was their choice to also risk mosquito bites.

 

[uppi]

Pretty much:

At higher temperatures, women perform better on a math and verbal task while the reverse effect is observed for men. The increase in female performance in response to higher temperature is significantly larger and more precisely estimated than the corresponding decrease in male performance.
​

What? Math at 30+ degrees? From my own experience working in an office without AC in summer the performance values should be way lower at 30+ degrees.​

 

[Samson]

Shorts and t-shirt in an office? I could understand if it was an employees-only area where no member of the public could see or no clients went.

Or maybe if it was at a gym or even the wildlife interpretation centre I used to work at, where shorts were part of the interpreters' uniforms in summer, if they chose. If they did, it was their choice to also risk mosquito bites.

Yes an office, but this is very much not customer facing. I have for quite a few years worked in science, and we do not have customers and acceptable clothing is pretty much anything that is legal to be in public in. Even the top bosses wear pretty relaxed clothing.

 

[warpus]

I work in an office (from home these days) and we've always had a "business casual" dress code that's so lenient you can wear shorts, jeans, t-shirts, etc. It's not really business casual I guess, but that's what it says in official documents. In practice those who interact with clients and higher ups in our organization tend to not dress so casual.. It's all a bit casual anyway. No suits or anything like that.

I've never understood the reluctance of people to wear shorts. What's the big deal? If it's warm you wear shorts *shrug*. If your office has a sexist dresscode in place, you rebel and come to work in a kilt or suck it up and sweat all over the place.

I've seen dress shorts, they exist. What's the problem, nobody's allowed to see male knees? I have beautiful knees. Just keep your eyes at eye level ya perv

 

[red_elk]

We have more or less strict dress code only for mid and top managers, and people in certain departments, like HR and others who work directly with clients.
Never seen strict codes for R&D guys, engineers, system administrators, etc, regardless if it's employees-only office or not. Some types of jobs require doing "dirty" work, like carrying stuff, replacing computer parts and other things - it would be strange to force people in these positions to wear suits and neckties.

 

[sherbz]

If you're too hot, why don't you just remove your jacket?

I do remove my jacket. But i still want air flow. I cant remove my shirt. Trouble is the heaters on busses are often the type that blow lots of hot hair out. And it can get like a hot box or sauna. Its also not nice to breathe. And made worse by wearing a mask - which we have to do on public transport.

IMO pointing out that women are always closing windows is silly. You see the patterns you want to see

This is anecdotal. But it is i believe generally true . I wonder if the phrase "men are from mars and women are from venus" has any relevance to the particular temperatures they each tend to prefer?

 

[Farm Boy]

I totally agree about dressing in layers, but there is a limit to how many you can take off, at least in public, in a way there is not about how many you can wear. This is a particular issue in the office, when I and other men in the office are coming in wearing shorts and tshirt, about the minimum it is acceptable to wear, and the women come in wearing no more but insist on the office being warmer. We need to find a happy medium to take into account everyone, but seriously, it would be so much easier if people wore appropriate clothing for their own comfort level.

A fan, as a last resort. And at that point, they can be damned if they find it annoying.

 

[warpus]

I do remove my jacket. But i still want air flow. I cant remove my shirt. Trouble is the heaters on busses are often the type that blow lots of hot hair out. And it can get like a hot box or sauna. Its also not nice to breathe. And made worse by wearing a mask - which we have to do on public transport.

This sounds like an infrastructure/bus problem. I ride the bus in the winter all the time (or used to at least), and this has never been a problem.

Are you sitting down right beside the heater exhaust or something? I don't get it

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I work in an office (from home these days) and we've always had a "business casual" dress code that's so lenient you can wear shorts, jeans, t-shirts, etc. It's not really business casual I guess, but that's what it says in official documents. In practice those who interact with clients and higher ups in our organization tend to not dress so casual.. It's all a bit casual anyway. No suits or anything like that.

I've never understood the reluctance of people to wear shorts. What's the big deal? If it's warm you wear shorts *shrug*. If your office has a sexist dresscode in place, you rebel and come to work in a kilt or suck it up and sweat all over the place.

I've seen dress shorts, they exist. What's the problem, nobody's allowed to see male knees? I have beautiful knees. Just keep your eyes at eye level ya perv

I'm trying to recall if any of the travel photos you've posted include you wearing anything but shirt and pants or shirt, jacket, and pants.

I do know you wore boots one time, because I saw the YT video in which you were cursing at your shoelaces.

This is anecdotal. But it is i believe generally true . I wonder if the phrase "men are from mars and women are from venus" has any relevance to the particular temperatures they each tend to prefer?

I'd prefer Mars' temperature, thankyouverymuch. It's actually warm enough to be outside in your shirtsleeves there in summer (at the equator), if you didn't have to wear a spacesuit to have air to breathe and be protected from radiation.

 

[Zardnaar]

Venus BBQ!!

 

[sherbz]

This sounds like an infrastructure/bus problem. I ride the bus in the winter all the time (or used to at least), and this has never been a problem.

Are you sitting down right beside the heater exhaust or something? I don't get it

Busses in wales are not quite as swanky as the ones in London. Think of a giant car heater running down the aisle either side and thats pretty much it.

The best ambient temperature IMO is on National express coaches. No need for windows on those bad boys.

 

[warpus]

That sounds like a really out of date fleet of buses. Isn't there EU funds Wales could tap into to upgrade the fleet to something a bit more modern?

I do in fact live in London, but it's probably not the London you are thinking of. We are officially the 2nd most popular London on the planet. We have really crappy public transit funding here, with the really bare minimum sort of system in place. And yet somehow we were able to upgrade the whole fleet of buses (over the last decade I think?) to new hybrid buses with a lowered floor (to make it more accessible). Mind you this was mainly done with an environmental mandate in place, and that gave us access to some extra funds (I think).

Unfortunately if one person is too hot and one person is too cold, there will never be a solution that will appease everyone. Here in Canada most people are too polite to speak up if somebody opens or closes a window. So whatever happens happens, and most people don't seem to care mainly because it isn't really a problem, unless somebody opens a window in the middle of the winter or opens too many windows and it gets too drafty or something. Usually I just see a person open 1 window and that's it, and nobody ever says a thing. That seems to be the Canadian way though. Only after that person has gotten off the bus, will somebody else maaaybe walk up to that window and close it.

I also suspect that here where I live in Canada people are acclimatized to more extreme weather. In the winter here it can easily drop down to -25C, and in the summer it can easily get up to 35C with 80% humidity, or worse. At times with humidex the temperature approaches 42+. So.. Maybe that's why less people care here? From what I know of British climate, it does not swing so much in terms of extremes.

 

[Arwon]

I don't think the windows on our buses in Canberra open. They have air conditioning and heating (it gets much hotter here than the UK, and a little colder at night than London or even Edinburgh).

 

[Kyriakos]

Many newer bus designs do seem to not even allow windows to open - there aren't any actual windows, just glass surrounded by metal.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So if the windows don't open, where's the emergency exit?

 

[sherbz]

If theres no windows they probably have air con. And you dont need windows with air con. A giant fan blowing out hot air is not air conditioning however.

 

[Kyriakos]

So if the windows don't open, where's the emergency exit?

You create it, I suppose ^_^ There is one 'window' which breaks more easily.

 

[warpus]

And you dont need windows with air con.

Here where I live we have parts of the year where AC would be a waste of energy (and money), but when it's also too warm to turn on heating. An open window is perfect in that situation.

Wouldn't that be case almost anywhere on the planet that's not anywhere close to the equator? I bet there's exceptions, but it seems that seasonal changes will usually give you that "neither AC or heating makes sense right now" time periods