Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Let's not do the time warp again

It's Wednesday and if you live in a place that adjusts clocks to comply with Daylight Savings Time, you're probably still having trouble adjusting to the time change that happened this past Saturday night. Every year, twice a year, it's the same old annoying things:
  • Trouble sleeping and waking up - One hour either way shouldn't have that much of an impact but it totally does. It feels like you're going to bed much later, getting up much earlier or vice versa. Either way, it knocks you for a loop and you feel tired and irritable for days afterward.
  • Adjusting your routine - The stuff you do when you're awake gets screwed up too. Never mind how darkness when it's supposed to be light (or vice versa) screws with your mind. How about just trying to figure out just how many time pieces you have that need to be updated and how to do it. Not just clocks and watches but microwave ovens and timers and stuff like that. Does your computer and cell phone do it automatically? Probably...but do you always rely on those devices to do what they're supposed to do without checking on them? I called someone at 6:00AM on Sunday to ask what time it is. "Your phone should automatically update itself", she said. I told her I don't trust machines. I heard some static that sounded like someone swearing into a pillow, a loud click and she was gone, further validating my lack of faith in gadgets. Also, odds are that your car radio clock doesn't have a one-button option for that. It's more likely that you have to push two different buttons until something flashes and then you have to simultaneously turn a dial with some other appendage. Once you get it done, you'll immediately forget how you did it and be in the same boat again in six months.
  • General confusion - Is now Daylight Savings Time or is that what just ended? I have such a tenuous grasp of so many aspects of day-to-day life sometimes.
  • Bitching - Every year, everybody complains about it. Including me. That might be the worst aspect of the whole thing. There's not a lot of point to complaining about something that everybody is dealing with and that probably isn't going to change. Although, it seems to me that there's a little extra edge to the complaints this time, what seems like real genuine anger. I don't know if that's because we're all just exponentially angry about everything or if people are finally just truly fed up with the whole thing.

1 comment:

Jeff Hickmott said...

Actually I quite like the 'Lighter Later' campaign over here to make Daylight Savings Time a year-round thing, but with a difference - two hours ahead instead of just one. And keeping it that way. Then you have daylight till at least 7pm year-round.