When it is Rome, do as the Romans do, or at least it’s something close to that.
But I didn’t heed that advice when I first moved south and I was pretty focused on the fact that I was taking on a whole new and difficult task. This crazy task came with a relocation to the south but the task was the focus of my thoughts. It would be the first time that I was in charge of a regional office, and it was a heck of an office to boot. When I went down for the final interview, I couldn’t help but notice all the nice amenities inside that office. And I also noticed that the place had zone controlled heating and cooling. And for the first couple of years, I was inside that zone controlled heating and A/C all the time. That’s what it took to get the hang of it to succeed, yet that sort of effort didn’t come as any kind of shock. I knew that running a regional office wasn’t going to be any sort of straight-forward. When it came to the climate, I just kept on running the central air conditioning. I had a nice little thermostat in my office and I kept my beach house cooling all the time as well. But that was sort of a waste plus the heating and cooling costs really got to be a bit staggering. The answer to that puzzle was to get right with that heat and humidity, so I took the advice of a local whom I play golf with. He advised that I not reach for the thermostat this springtime but instead acclimate more to the heat. That’s just what I did and it’s really made a world of difference. Not only do I not stay inside all summer to avoid the heat, but the cost of all that air conditioning plummeted as well.