how to be a jerk and get away with it

An actual email exchange that occurred between myself and our accountant-ish person. [Back story: the air conditioner in the back office barely works, and it vents into a closet rather than to the outside world. The closet has an external door, but it's deadbolted and very few people have a key.]

Hello all.

Now that the warm weather is here, please remember to close all the windows when you leave at night. Safety, security.

and... if you choose to turn on the A/C, please close all the windows, we don't need to cool the alley.

and lastly, please remember to turn OFF the A/C when you leave, we don't need to cool the back office from 6pm-9am either.

Thank you for being energy conscious.

And yet, if we only turn it on in the morning, the office does not cool off before 5pm.

Yes, but today... it's not even 70 degree's out... and your office is a refrigerator... people are wearing Wool Sweaters, and it's early June, what shall we do in the heat of July and August?

[Someone] suggested that venting the air conditioner back into the office is a less-than-efficient use of energy; if you or whoever has a key to the back door could remember to open it in the morning and close it at night, it would vent to the outside and that may be enough to boost its efficiency enough that it actually works. If it doesn't, I would hope that we can get the air conditioner serviced or replaced before the heat of July and August hits.

Hello All...

the A/C has been installed in back for about two weeks.

The Electric Bill for the Front office is $320 - about average... we only turned on our A/C last week.
the Electric bill for the back office is $787... over three times the average amount for that space. Generally it's about $230

Please turn the A/C off when you leave at night. The room should cool off in about an hour after you turn it on the morning As for the video office, I think you have a whole other A/C system rigged up.

In my office and [the publisher]'s office there is no A/C at all.

Thank you for your cooperation.

The air conditioner has been running on high for the last 28 hours straight; our office is now the same temperature as the unconditioned warehouse, making me wonder where our $800 is going. We can continue cc'ing the whole office on snarky emails and go nowhere, or we could be productive and get the air conditioner serviced or replaced before the weather starts getting really hot. It would lower both the temperature and the electric bill, and make everyone involved happy. With the numbers you quoted, the service would pay for itself in under two weeks. Or we could throw away $800 every month and sweat our collective balls off.

The publisher just called me and said we can get a key to open the back door.

- Z