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Going from a job where everything is UK-centric to one where I'm now working with people from across the US, Australia and Europe, I've had to get to grips with time zones pretty quickly.
There have been a couple of embarrassing moments when I miscalculated, and ended up joining online meetings an hour late!
Half the problem comes because most people tend to use their local time-zone abbreviation. That's fine if you're all in the same country, and know what those abbreviations mean. But when you're working globally it's a recipe for confusion.
For example, how is someone to know whether Eastern Standard Time (EST) refers to EST in Australia or EST in North America? Does CST refer to China Standard Time, Central Standard Time (Australia), Central Standard Time (Central and North America), or Cuba Standard Time?
It gets even more confusing when some countries (like the UK) change their clocks in the summer (for some strange, historical reason that seems to be to do with farmers in Scotland...).
So to work out when a meeting should take place, I need to check with my colleagues which timezone they're in (checking the country to make sure) then work out the time difference between them and me. And everyone else in the meeting will need to do the same.
Wouldn't it be much easier if there was a common reference point, so all we had to do was a quick calculation without all the complex looking up of individual time zone differences?
Well, it exists. It's called UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). Every time zone is then defined as being UTC ± an integer number of hours.
So, currently, I'm at UTC +1 (although that changes in October when the UK goes back to UTC Zero time)
Boulder, Colorado, USA, (Mountain Daylight Time) is at UTC - 6
L'viv, Ukraine (Eastern European Summer Time) is at UTC + 3
So, the only information anyone needs to provide, to arrange a meeting, is their UTC time zone offset, ie. UTC+1, UTC-6 and UTC+3
There's no need for anyone to go looking for a time-zone convertor
Let's say the meeting is at 08:00 UTC-6
For me, in the UK, the difference between -6 and +1 = +7, so I know that the meeting is at 3pm my time.
For colleagues in L'viv, the meeting is at 08:00 + (difference between -6 and +3) = 08:00 + 9 = 5pm their time.
Simples!
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_time_zones_of_the_world.png
3 comments
Working across timezones, myself, I do feel your ‘pain’, but it is not quite as ’simple’ as you seem to imply in this article !!
There are many countries that do not change their clocks and some countries in which half the country changes while half doesn’t (Australia, I’m talking about you!). Which all goes to make things even more tricky, especially as the very concept of changing clocks may not even cross the mind of colleagues in these countries.
Just to add further to the confusion, not all countries change their clocks at the same time. While most in 2013 will change clocks on 31st March (Easter Sunday) some will change later and the USA will have already changed on 10th March; which means that there will be 2 or 3 weeks when the US is an hour closer to Europe.
Gee, I finding working internationally to be great and I enjoy exchanging ideas and time with people from different cultures and backgrounds but, by golly, these timezone issues can be a nightmare if you’re not aware of them!
Agreed Doug. I might have oversimplified.
But, as long as everyone involved provides their position relative to UTC for the date in question, then that should solve all the problems…
Well, maybe not all, as things get complicated when you get near the International Date Line!
A good find Mark - cheers!
To throw another ‘quirk’ into the mix, when I was in the Army and undertaking overseas operations many of our timings were based upon UK time, as well as other timings being based upon local time!!!
An absolute nightmare :-/
