The World Clock, by Mike Threatt

The fact that China utilizes a single time zone doesn't seem to cause much disruption in the great scheme of things, people go to work at the same time of day whether they are on the east coast or out west. Kids in Wuhan go to school at 7 in the morning just like kids in Dalian. It might be a little darker when they head out but what the heck, it works. What I'm wondering is why can't we expand/improve on this idea and make it worldwide?

Use of time zones is based on an outmoded system which propagates the egocentric tendency to have a workday start at 'my local time'. The concept of time zones is the result of our once agrarian society coming into conflict with the modern worker's inflexibility and resolve to force standardization onto an arbitrary system. The fact that someone to work at 9:00 a.m. has nothing to do with the label '9:00 a.m.', it has to do with the 12 hour window of time into which a typical workday is situated, '9:00 a.m.' is simply the name for the beginning of that window. If the name of that point were changed to '8:00 p.m.' nothing in the physical world would actually change, it would still be a name for 'that point in time at which the sun has been up for a certain period at this location'.

The World Clock (WC) would simplify everyone's schedule by negating the need for time zone conversion. You would no longer have to consider the west coast being so many hours behind Beijing and allowing for the difference in dates, you would only remember that your mom in New York wakes up at '19:00'. At 19:00 the sun has been up for two hours in New York and it's still dark in L.A. where they get up at 23:00. What we now use as time zones would be used to separate the workday zones, only the nomenclature would change. In Jinan classes now start at '8:00 a.m.', under the new system they might start at 16:00 WC. The thing is that as it stands now we think of '16:00' as the afternoon when it's really just an arbitrarily assigned name for that part of the day.

Then consider how much easier it would be to synchronize travel schedules. Under the current system you arrive in the US at the 'same time' as when you leave China. Airlines go by local time anyway but we would no longer have to calculate twice by taking into account the current time at the arrival point. "Let's see, it's 8 a.m. here which means it's 7 p.m. yesterday at home and I'm leaving now which means I'll be home in 14 hours at 9 a.m. this morning there but by then it'll be 10 p.m. tonight." With WC time your schedule would be more coherent in that you would leave at '02:00' and arrive at '16:00' which is a much more realistic way of looking at your actual travel time.

Businesses would find it much easier to arrange their schedules with international offices. Currently they are forced to think this way:

Head Guy: "The meeting is Monday at 9:00, let's make sure the L.A. rep is online for that."

Sycophant A: "But that's 4 in the morning for him."

Sycophant B: "No, it's 3 in the morning, you forgot DST."

Head Guy: "What time do they get to work there?"

Sycophant B: "Their office opens at 9:30."

Head Guy: "What time is that here?"

Sycophant A: "3:30"

Head Guy: "Well, I'm not getting up at 3 in the morning for those guys."

Sycophant B: "No, it's 3:30 in the afternoon our time."

Head Guy: "So have them come in to work early at 3:00."

Sycophant C: "I don't think they'll want to go to work at 3 in the morning."

Sycophant A: "That's 3:00 our time, 9:00 their time."

Head Guy: "Ok, contact their office and everybody be here at 3:00 Monday."

Sycophant B: "Damn I hate getting up that early."

Head Guy (to Sycophant B): "If we're not here then start making coffee."

The new system:

Head Guy: "The meeting is at 9:00."

Sycophant A: "The L.A. office doesn't open until 15:30."

Head guy: "OK, ask them to come in a little early and make it 15:00."

Time zones would maintain status as a regulatory system for local work periods and schedules but the designation would be altered to coincide with the WC. Rather than saying "I'm on Central Time" and forcing people to calculate from their zone, you would simply say "I'm in 16", which means a normal workday in my area starts at 16:00 WC. Someone in Japan might say they are in zone 7 so their day starts at 07:00 WC.

For those areas that insist on utilizing Daylight Savings Time, a prime example of useless government intervention, the WC would remain the same, we'd just go to work an hour earlier. Changing to DST would not mean that we change the clocks by an hour, we'd change the time we go to work. People may gripe about going to work at 22:00 rather than 23:00 but what's the difference between that and what we do now? It's an hour earlier, that's it.

As a side issue I propose that the WC be in Bath rather than Greenwich (they've had it long enough). Or maybe Flushing, NY.

Just my opinion, but you know it's right.

-- Mike T, January 2004

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