I've been working in a warehouse in FL for about 2 months now. The warehouse has 0 AC but had four 4.5-5ft diameter shop fans spread around the different rooms. The main office where the receptionist and Manager sit has a single wall AC unit but is kept very low (67 degrees that they never turn up/off at night when we are closed). We are often told if we get too hot we can go into the office in order to really cool down. We never do because when we get hot we sit in front of a big ass fan in our break room.
Where I am in Florida has had daily heat index' between 110-121 everyday for the last few weeks. We never complained about the heat outside of jokingly. We do the work, sweat, go sit down.
The company next door (has AC and we share a wall & door) was letting us borrow the fans but took 2 of them back (31JUL)
Last week on Wednesdaythe AC in the office went out. The complaints I heard almost immediately were extremely irritating.
Now here comes the question. On both Thursday and Friday around mid-day they told me I had 2 options. I either needed to go work at a sister location that had “natural” AC and work for the remainder of the day or go home and eat the hours. Those with PTO could take it but I just started at the beginning of July so I have none and have 0 cross-training at the other locations so I surely would have just been told to sit for a couple hours…which would drive me crazy, if in working let me work, it's not a lack of work thing, there is stuff we can do at our warehouse.
Again, labor workers were fine with the heat, the office workers weren't. It's currently 102 with a heat index of 120 and we are at work with 0 talks of going home early. I am irritated because we would have stayed the office staff wanted to go home.
Edit: This is a partial rant/question. I was annoyed. I work as a civilian on a military base. I don't expect these hours at all but was pretty irritated at those options when we were fine and clearly the manager and receptionist just wanted out because they broke the AC we don't use.