America should have two time-zones

No problem. And then we can legislate that the Earth turn more slowly so the east and west coasts really ARE an hour apart. And then we can legislate that pi=3.
Then nature will just change because of lawmakers.

3 Likes

My dad lives in the part of Indiana that stays on Central Time. If we drive 5 miles either north or east, it’s an hour later. You get used to it, but it’s a pain. And yes, we’ve messed up dinner reservations more than a few times over the years.

2 Likes

Because it’s a heavily agricultural state. Natural things – plants and animals – don’t function according to clocks. Cows do not magically start waking up an hour later to be milked, for example.

2 Likes

Isn’t it already?

Seriously! Purchase single programs and watch when you want instead of paying for hundreds of channels and having to watch at a specific time when they are broadcast.

1 Like

"…disparaging another group of people (coastal dwellers) "

Some people in the “flyover time zones” appear to have a regional inferiority complex, self-inflicted.

1 Like

No. We’re already out to lunch. The proposal won’t change that.

@jhbadger also clearly isn’t working for a company that needs to coordinate tasks with other companies across the country, let alone worldwide.

I recently dealt with three companies sending me scheduling information for overlapping time windows within the same day, specified in three different time zones, none of which were my own - and then had to figure out how to shift those schedules around so they wouldn’t collide with each other and communicate the changes back. If that sort of thing had localized time added into it, I think I’d go nuts.

2 Likes

I have insomnia. DST is a major disruption to my sleep patterns (which, at this point, are more along the lines of carefully constructed sleep deprivation designed to leave me just well-rested-enough to safely drive). Since it happens twice a year, I have two arbitrary additional disruptions a year for no real reason. Switch it to one or the other and leave it there forever, thanks.

As for the idea of getting rid of some time zones, do not want. What are we trying to accomplish? Simplifying people’s lives, right? Well, as long as we have a world where we have to communicate with people in different timezones, we’re going to be dealing with the fact that they’re sometimes quite reasonably asleep when we’re quite reasonably up-and-at-em.

Take the Beijing model noted above. Everyone refers to the time in Beijing time but then has local time along side it. Want to call someone on the other side of China but don’t know if they’re asleep? Still gotta compare their local time to your local time. Planning a meeting with someone? It pretty much is only easy if you can look at their free/busy time in your time format.

Or the other idea, the one about everyone starting work at 8AM NY time or 8AM London time? Humans didn’t evolve to live that way. We’re barely hanging in there with our late nights of too much light as it is.

2 Likes

I’d rather America switch over to metric units before we even begin to touch time zones.

10 Likes

She’s got it totally right that Central time is a fiction. I noticed on my first visits to the midwest that rush hour was an hour earlier, as was TV, and just about everything else. They’re actually on Eastern time. Maybe they feel more virtuous rising earlier?

Well I live in NZ and deal with the US daily, and China, and Europe, and India, and , you describe my world I have 5 clocks on my desktop. People simply announce when they’re available online - it’s way better than "oh they live in Arizona what time zone is that in, do they live in the bit that doesn’t do DST. As it is I have to know “Fred in Mountain View doesn’t come in until 11am” anyway

I live far enough south that I want to see some daylight at the end of the day in winter - I want to be able to have to persuade my company (which I happen to own) rather than my country that we’re going to start early and leave before the sun goes down - I want double DST in summer and in winter

1 Like

Life is for living so I prefer DST to standard because I actually get to use some daylight after work.

Despite Benjamin Franklin’s aphorisms, there is nothing particularly virtuous about an early start to the day in the Midwest. A lot of work schedules, especially in the industrial (and formerly industrial) areas of the Midwest, are tied to manufacturing shifts. Management often would keep the same hours as the first shift of the day, which would often start at 7 or 8 AM. Even when the direct connection with a factory was no longer there, the corporate culture and work habits would persist. If anything, the historical roots of why the factory shift starts early would be more in line with workers wanting a bit of daylight to enjoy their lives at the end of the day

1 Like

I always feel bad for El Paso and that little corner of Texas that is a different time zone from the rest of the state.

1 Like

Terrible idea. I don’t think many parents will be thrilled to send their children off to school while it’s still pitch black outside. What we need to do it get rid of the stupid change the Bush administration put in, that extends DST too long.

I lived the first half of my life in Missouri. CST is not a national fiction. Most people in my current area (EST) jump at the chance to work 7AM-4PM too. On the rare occasion they have the opportunity.

I spent a week working in LA recently. All of my coworkers there vie for the earlier shifts too.

Everyone wants to get off earlier and have more time to enjoy themselves in the evening. Time zone doesn’t enter into it. Though in my case, I’d rather having my extra time by way of a shorter commute and fewer hours of work (with the same yearly pay :trollface: I’m a socialist). Waking up early isn’t quite what I need.

1 Like

Many people in the middle of the country either make their living in agriculture or by working with those in agriculture. Many of those tasks are inexorably tied to sunrise and sunset, and won’t easily shift to make prime-time television viewing more convenient.

2 Likes

I really agree with what she says about Daylight Savings Time, It’s old and unnecessary and should be gone. I agree with most of what she says about time zones too, but if things would be switched around, why not just have it follow the state lines? (Along the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas’s western borders) More things would be changed but it would be easier to know when you’re switching zones.

(Ignore this. It replied to myself.)