Theoretiquette — Confusion Standard Time

A treatise on time change. I’m so sorry.

Dear Theoretiquette,

I always see you talking about time zones and stuff on Facebook, but to be honest, I don’t get it. Can you explain what all this is about? What even is daylight savings time? And how do you know the difference? If you happen to have a mnemonic that references musical theatre, that would be great.

Also, what’s the big deal? It seems like, I mean, even if someone is wrong, you still get the gist, right?

Thanks,

Eastern Daylight Troubled

Dear Eastern STANDARD Troubled,

I am SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Daylight saving time (DST) is the practice of advancing clocks one hour between the Spring and Fall solstice, resulting in sunsets falling an hour later. So twice a year, we spring forward or fall back, leading to a few weeks of disrupted sleep, increased traffic accidents, and other public safety hazards, and a bunch of obnoxious posts on our social media feeds, some of which involve Cher.

You have probably heard something about it having to do with farming, but that’s not true. Actually, farmers have traditionally opposed DST, they generally prefer to have more daylight in the morning hours. In reality, DST was instituted as a response to industrialized societies “9 to 5” shift work life. See, it was proposed by this bug-scientist, George Hudson, in 1895. He wanted more hours after he got off work to hunt bugs. Yup, that’s right, all this suffering so some long dead Brit could go butterfly hunting like some Animal Crossing islander.

It was championed particularly by golf-loving politicians, who wanted to have plenty of time to hit the links after a hard day’s work of oppressing marginalized communities. DST started to be formally adopted in the early 20th century and has been a controversial topic since day one. It’s been instated, repealed, adjusted, and reinstated countless times across the world in the century and change since it was first adopted. It wasn’t officially standardized across the US until 1966. (Pre-federal intervention: St. Paul and Minneapolis were on different times for two weeks a year.)

These days, not all countries use it–it’s most popular in Western/white-governed countries which should tell you everything you need to know. And those countries that do use it all have different start and end times. In the US, DST runs from the 2nd Sunday in March to the 1st Sunday in November, except for Hawaii and most of Arizona, neither of which observe DST. In the UK and EU, it’s generally the last Sundays in March and October. In Syria, it changes on Fridays. In Iran, it’s tied to the Solar Hijri calendar. Australia only observes DST in certain places, and it changes on the 1st Sunday of October and April. Basically, this shit causes chaos all the time and generally sucks.

To your other question:

Let’s say you live in Toledo, Ohio. That means you live in the Eastern Time zone. Yes, all of Ohio is in the Eastern Time zone, as well as parts, but not all, of Indiana. Anyway. Let’s say back in March 2020, when you were excited by the realization that you could use Zoom not just for meetings, but to hang out with friends, and were not yet exhausted by the ubiquitous online gatherings, you sent an email to the following folks:

• Kevin, who lives in Phoenix (MST or GMT-7) and his brother Kyle, who lives nearby in Window Rock in the Navajo Nation (MDT or GMT-6)
• Jannah who lives in LA (PDT or GMT-7)
• Nigel in Newcastle-upon-Tyne (GMT because BST starts three weeks after the US’s DST)
• Basil in Sydney (AEDT, because AEST doesn’t start until the first Sunday in April)
• Ziya in Ankara (Turkey Time, literally, that’s what it’s called and it never changes)
• Leti in Santiago (CLST because CLT doesn’t start until the first SATURDAY in April)
• Noor in Tehran (IST, though IRDT starts in two days, or GMT+4:30 because WHY THE FUCK NOT?)

That was way too much and I should have cut this whole section but I really want to make sure you understand two things:

1. Turkey’s time zone is called Turkey Time.

2. Iran is offset from GMT by four AND A HALF hours.

In your email you tell everyone that you’re going to gather at 8pm EST on March 21. This is wrong. You meant EDT.

Jannah’s parents live in Philly, so she’s used to doing the conversion, just add three hours and call it a day. Everyone else looked it up online, using a time zone converter searching “EST” which is GMT-5 instead of EDT which is GMT-4, so they all showed up an hour early. While they wait for you to show up, they talk shit about you and they all decide you suck and you’re never going to hang out again, then leave shortly before you and Jannah show up. This is fine, because you have a crush on Jannah so you end up shooting your shot. It goes well until Noor shows up at 8:30 because she converted the time when she got your email, wrote it down, and forgot Iran’s time change on the 21st and WTF even IS Iran Time??

ANYWAY. Obviously it’s all super confusing. Personally, I have a few different solutions I’d like to propose:

1. Just do it fucking right, it’s not that hard. If the sunnier half of the year, it should be EDT. Otherwise it’s EST. You wanna know how I remember? Honest? The opening lyrics of the musical Rent, the original cast record of which I listened to arguably too much as a tween and teen, are “December 24th, nine PM, Eastern Standard Time.” Seriously. That’s how I remember. You can blame Rent for me being a pedantic asshole about this. If you really can’t be bothered to remember, just take thirty seconds to google it, for me. Do it for me.
2. If you really just can’t be bothered to remember or google it, the least you could do is avoid it. I am incapable of consistently using the correct version of “affect/effect” so you know what I do? I rewrite the sentence so I don’t have to use either. So if you really just can’t be fucking bothered, do what the television stations do, and drop the middle letter. Just write “ET”. Save yourself a keystroke and save me a grey hair.
3. ADOPT DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME YEAR ROUND. This is the solution I really want. DST is great. What I hate is the change. There’s all kinds of evidence that DST is better for us: it saves energy, it’s economically beneficial, it improves health, it reduces traffic accidents, etc, etc. These shouldn’t be used as arguments to keep changing back and forth (especially now, post-COVID, when we’ve all realized that time is meaningless anyway). They should be used as arguments to adopt it full time. Like, literally, we add the extra after-work hour during the summer, when we already have extra sunlight? You know when I want more sunlight after work? In January, when the goddam sun sets at fucking 4pm in Boston. Like, what the actual fuck?

The main argument against permanent DST is that the sun rises later during the winter. Listen. I fully remember watching the sun rise during second period English in high school. (These motherfuckers had our school day start at 7:30 in the fucking morning.) Unless you change a lot of other things, like the start of the work and school day, etc, we’re all waking up before the sun ANYWAY, so why not just let us have a little bit of sunlight after work at least? There’s nothing quite as soul crushing as the first week back from your winter holiday, when you walk into work before the sun rises and leave after it sets and you realize that the only co-workers who got to see the sun today were the smokers so you start to consider taking the habit up again just so you can see the light of day.

Personally, I only give like half a fuck whether if it’s permanent daylight savings or permanent standard time. But I give a lot of fucks about the change. Abolish the time change. It’s awful.

And until then, write the proper abbreviations in your fucking emails.

Yours,

Theoretiquette