…Light Saving Time, that is!
Editorial note: Previously I was so confused with the time change that I shifted meetings for work with my colleagues in the USA an hour earlier when they should be an hour later. Oh the joy of sleeping in! This blog post is now being updated to reflect the correct time changes. Or at least what I think is correct! Those changes will be reflected in italics, just like this text.
When the USA messes with most of the rest of the world by following that out-of-date practice of changing the recognized time, it becomes major annoyance. Not only does it make it difficult to know when you should be calling people to speak on the phone or know exactly when your flight might land, it causes havoc for business meetings!
Starting this week my normal 7am meetings for work shift to a 6am start. And that random 5am meeting that pops up every now and then? Yeah, that begins at 4am. Needless to say I might be sleeping through a few of those and/or completely working from home on those days! a lovely 8am start! That’s right! Until some time in the spring of 2018 I’ll get to sleep in most mornings. It will be marvelous!
The time change for DST does not happen here in China. And time keeping in China is pretty simple as there’s only one time zone. For the entire country. A country that’s about as wide as the USA! Think about that for a moment: a country that’s about 2300 miles (3700km) wide and spans four traditional time zones only has one. 5am in Shanghai is 5am in Beijing and Chengdu! The lack of time zones helps for business by keeping everyone on the same clock, but man, imagine the sun not rising until maybe 8am in the winter time if you’re way out in Western China!
Personally I wish the various states in the USA would end this farm-rooted practice and just stop switching the time. (Time keeping is a states rights issue, not a federal one, so each state gets to define it’s own time.) If the USA ends the practice, it’s likely the rest of the world will as well. Until that happens, accept my apology in advance for being extra grumpy in the morning over the next five months! And until the spring of 2018 when the time shifts in the other direction, unless by some miracle Congress gets its act together and forces a national time standard that never switches for part of the year, and then I’ll go back to being grumpy morning Expat Richie.