Hot and Cold

The office building I work in is a typical office building filled with typical human beings. Part of my job is facilities management. So I get to hear all the complaints about the HVAC system. Not only is there the usual problem of not being able to please everyone or sometimes even ANYONE, we also have the most retarded HVAC system ever manufactured. This time of year the thing typically gets way confused because the weather is still a little cold out but when the sun comes out it heats up certain offices so the system thinks that particular zone needs tremendous cooling so if your office is in that zone, you're screwed. It freezes people out regularly, while at the same time someone else on the other side of the building may be frying to death. It's truly insane.
So one day not too long ago I was moving some files around and putting last years' files in the basement and stuff like that so I was getting a little hot. Not wanting to be a whiner and not thinking about the retarded furnace/air conditioner, I simply opened my window to cool my office off. Which worked quite nicely for ME but also turned out to be torture for my co worker across the hall since the system thought that it was now cold in our zone so it began blasting heat at full fan speed in our zone, cooking everyone but me. Finally she said something to me about it and when turning the heat down didn't work I thought to me "oh, well I'll just FOOL the thermostat (which is in my office) by lighting my lighter under it and heating that little baby right up!" Not only did it not work, it created a melty brown spot on the bottom of it. OOPS! It is now quite obvious what happened there. Thankfully, it still works - or at least as well as it ever has.
I figured no one would ever notice, but sure enough, last week we had some other issue with the system and when the repair man came to address other issues, he was standing in my office afterwards chatting about the state of our system. I sat there sweating just a tiny bit thinking "Man, I sure hope he doesn't glance over there at that thermostat." Of course he did. I was busted! He grinned and said "Ayup! You tried heating that there up with a lighter, didn't you? Happens all the time, ma'am. Desperate times call for desperate measures. But I wouldn't recommend you do that again. Nooo... Just turn the heat down instead or open a window."