Commuting across timezones
Commuting across timezones
Accurate, detailed time zone borders for North America, including Daylight Saving time observance and unofficial local exceptions to official time. Magenta lines represent constant time zone borders. Cyan (light blue) lines represent those that apply only during Daylight Saving Time. Dark blue li...
I realized (as I was commuting) this morning, that some people must live near timezone borders.
How does that work for you? Do you think in work time at home? Home time at work?
It must be easier these days with smartphones and smart watches automatically adjusting time according to you location?
Share your experience please, I'm curious!
You're viewing a single thread.
Way back in college (20ish years ago) I had a friend that was living on the Illinois/Indiana boarder. He lived in Indiana but went to college in Illinois, so he was going to school in one time zone and working in another. To make matters worse, in those days Indiana had some counties that observed daylight savings and some that didn't. So he had to keep track of what shift he was on for work in his own county and if it was daylight savings or not, and in case he was making plans with any friends in other counties or just going to stores or appointments or anything, and what times he had to go to class in the other time zone. He says there were days he would show up places three hours late even though he only lived 20 minutes away because he didn't realize time had sprung forward and he had his watch set on the wrong state.
This was before smartphones, and I think the state has done away with that partially observing the time switch thing.
Personally, I'm a SuperCommuter and commute long distances for work, but only occasionally. So I'll live on the West Coast but my office is on the East Coast, so I think in office time. For me, 4am is 7am because that's what time it is for the rest of my team. Occasionally I'll have to set my internal clock to Guam Time or Amsterdam Time for a couple weeks at a time until a project is done, and it makes it much easier when I fly out there because my brain is already on that rhythm.
Indiana has stopped that thankfully. Several counties near Chicago (northwest IN) and near Evansville (southwest IN) are on central time and the rest of the state is eastern time, but everyone changes for daylight saving time now.
How often do you have to make that insane commute?
Completely depends on the project. For general, everyday work, I'll go out for a day or two once every two or three weeks. For something that needs more detail or collaboration, I'll go out for a week and then not go back for a month or five weeks. If I'm working on a project outside of my normal office (I mentioned Guam and Amsterdam, but I've had projects elsewhere, too), I'll work from home while I can and then travel there for two to three weeks and during that time I wouldn't travel to my actual office for months.