Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Daylight Savings

Could someone please just invent a time machine? No, not for jumping back and forwards through time - I have no interest in that - I just want something that will tell me what time it is. I know they've already invented clocks and watches - but they don't do me a jot of good come daylight savings.
I realise this isn't an issue for many people. They have no trouble with the concept of time. Not me. Ask my partner. She hates daylight savings more than I do. And it’s not just because I no longer know what time it is. I suffer lethagy akin to jetlag for the first two weeks and I get grouchy because my sleep patterns are thrown out. I resent the time spent changing the timer on the vcrs, televisions, 4 watches, microwave, stove clock, alarm clocks, camera, computer, PDA, the car, mobile phone etc - and knowing I'm going to have to change them all back again in a minute. I hate having to carry the newspaper with me from room to room to check the little picture of the clock showing which way the hands go.
And I hate that I don’t just "get it"? We go through the same thing every year. I cannot remember appliance to appliance which way time has moved, let alone from year to year. And it's been explained to me again and again, millions of times - and just when I think I have it, it’s gone. And I’m running out of people to ask. (You can only get someone to explain it to you so many times before they look at you oddly.)
And all for what? So we can go swimming after work? So it's still light when I try to go to sleep before 9pm? So I can spend the next month getting up in the dark? So I can send my partner mad by continually asking: if it's 7 o'clock here (when my mobile phone free time starts) what time is it in Queensland? And don’t even get me started on daylight savings in other countries and which goes which way. I’ve scheduled half a day on Monday to rework my time zone spreadsheet so I’ve got a fighting chance of not waking our South African colleagues at some more unthinkable hour!
It's not just daylight savings time that throws me. I never know whether a meeting is sooner or later if it's moved back or forward. Why can't people just say what they mean? It's earlier or it's later. Simple.
I know it's all a matter of interpretation. But that part of my brain is missing or just unable to deal with clocks with hands. I should have paid more attention to the rocket clock on Play School instead of worrying about what was through the window. If you wind back the hands of the clock, that makes it sooner. But if you put back a meeting, you're not doing that. Or are you?
And if I can’t get a time machine, I’ll settle for a digital revolution. Let’s do away with analog clocks. No more big hands and little hands. No more second hands. No more worrying about turning hands back or forwards on Sunday. Then maybe I could change over to daylight savings without being reminded, yet again, that I don’t “get” it and at this rate I never will. And it’s not as though people couldn’t still use their analogs. We’re nearly 40 years into decimal and people still talk inches and feet, pounds and ounces.
Or perhaps we could just abolish daylight savings. Flexitime anyone?

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