Save what?

So you’re wandering around a bit bleary-eyed today. As the saying goes, “Spring Water, Fall Down”, or something like that. Pithy phrases are no way to run your life, I say. I need more sleep.

It all happens because of an idea called “Daylight Savings Time”, which is another one of those mis-named government programs. After all, if we really were “saving” daylight over these next eight months, shouldn’t we collect interest? If this hour of daylight were put into a CD, we’d have about 2 minutes extra by November. Or, if we put it into a REIT, we could have … well, let’s not go there.

The whole intent is that by saving “daylight” we’re really saving energy. That may well be true , but we could do this in other ways. It only works in the first place because many people work in offices during hours set by someone else. Those of us who work on our own time, like REALTORS, get things done when we can. Or, more accurately, avoid getting things done when we can.

If everyone who goes to an office and pretends to work just started to pretend a bit earlier, it would be the same. They could even pretend to go home and get an extra Happy Hour in, if that’s what they do. If it seems a bit confusing, they could always use it as an excuse for somehow failing to realize their house was supposed to actually be clean in time for the showing right at 7:00. It’s all about what you get used to doing, or not doing, and when.

I’ve always been amused by the Great Myth of Central Time. This is what I call the simple realization that while people on the East Coast tend to work 9-5, we work 8-4 in Central Time. We come home earlier, and watch Fox Nooze an hour earlier, and go to sleep an hour earlier. We’re in sync with the East Coast and the great corporate wizards who set the hours, no matter what number you put on it. The only advantage we have in being one time zone to the west is that they can’t hear us make jokes about them.

On the internet, it’s easy to see that there is really only one time. You see it stamped on every e-mail. It’s called “Greenwich Mean Time”, because it was set by the Greenwich Observatory in London when the Royal Navy needed a time standard to find where they were in the world. This was back when the sun never set on the British Empire, because even God didn’t trust an Englishman in the dark (the obligatory Dave Allen joke being used in time for St. Patrick’s Day).

More recently, this time has become known as “Universal Standard Time” or UST. That avoids the embarrassment of people knowing they have to pronounce it “GREN-itch”, and gives non-Brits the luxury of thinking it was their idea all along (usually).

In the end, the time is just a number. Who cares if you wake up at 1300 and come home from work at 2300? All you need to know is that “Adult Swim” comes on the Cartoon Network at 0300 and you’re set – assuming they have the good cartoons on before you go to bed at … well, I’d rather not confess that arbitrary number, OK?