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Are time zones really so baffling?

Chris Hobson

Chris Hobson

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
I have just been amusing myself by reading twenty five stories about people who have no understanding of how time zones work. They also seem to have a built in resistance to having the concept explained to them. Obviously this is not a representative sample but I'm left wondering what proportion of people we are dealing with here. There really are some idiots out there and they walk among us. The funniest ones are those who talk down to people whilst being confidently wrong.

notalwaysright.com

No Fortitude For Longitude: New Year's Special

Customer: "Is that like, last year's celebrations?" Me: "No that was about an hour ago in Sydney." Customer: "But it's nighttime there. It's still daytime." Me: "Yeah but it's already past midnight in Australia."
notalwaysright.com notalwaysright.com

Once you have followed the link and read the first story, you have to click on the headings below the word "Related" to get to the next time zone story, rather than the red buttons marked "Previous" and "Next" which are just random stories filed according to the time that they were posted.
 
The thing you got to remember is that Britain invented time.....since we have the Grenwich line we got to tell everyone else what the time is in thier country.....and that makes us better than everyone else :rofl:

*roughly plagerised from memory from an Al Murrey sketch on youtube
 
I remember getting to LA from Sidney and arriving before I'd set off. Now that was confusing! :rofl:
 
I've realised that this list doesn't include every NAR time zone story as there is a couple that I can remember that aren't there. In one case the irate customer on the phone demanded to speak to the manager who listened to him for a while before saying, I have neither the time or the energy to explain time zones to you, so you are going to have to either believe me or die angry about it.
 
Chris Hobson said:
I have just been amusing myself by reading twenty five stories about people who have no understanding of how time zones work. They also seem to have a built in resistance to having the concept explained to them. Obviously this is not a representative sample but I'm left wondering what proportion of people we are dealing with here. There really are some idiots out there and they walk among us. The funniest ones are those who talk down to people whilst being confidently wrong.

notalwaysright.com

No Fortitude For Longitude: New Year's Special

Customer: "Is that like, last year's celebrations?" Me: "No that was about an hour ago in Sydney." Customer: "But it's nighttime there. It's still daytime." Me: "Yeah but it's already past midnight in Australia."
notalwaysright.com notalwaysright.com

Once you have followed the link and read the first story, you have to click on the headings below the word "Related" to get to the next time zone story, rather than the red buttons marked "Previous" and "Next" which are just random stories filed according to the time that they were posted.
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This sort of reminds me of the time I mentioned to someone that my wife worked for one of the developers who was involved in the stuff for the national lottery? His response was, “does she know next week’s numbers?” There was a girl I dated many years back, we went round a mate’s place & they had this cat with the ears removed. (due to tumours, so the story went?) the cat came trotting by & my mate made a “pss, psss, noise it turned trotted up & started “rubbing musk” on new legs. On bending to pet the animal my date looked up & asked, “is he deaf?”
 
Chris Hobson said:
Ooh don't go opening the Pandora's Box of more general stupidity or we will be going completely down the rabbit hole.
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Along similar lines. During work banter. I did suggest (jokingly) to a colleague that due to the clocks going forward, we loose an hour’s pay. “What?!” He exclaimed, “they can’t do that.” Don’t worry we get paid for it come the autumn. 😉
 
Daylight saving time causes almost as much confusion for the hard of thinking as time zones do. So Pandora's box it is then. I Just came across this one.

I once had a minor disagreement with someone from Texas. This took place in the US (obviously). He remarked on how well I spoke English. I said, “well I’m from England so it’s hardly surprising”. He gave me a blank look, evidently not understanding my point. I added “you see the language, ‘English’ was named after the country, ‘England’”. He looked at me in a way that I interpreted as a mixture between confusion and pity, before replying “no, you named your country after our language”. He was completely serious.
 
Chris Hobson said:
Daylight saving time causes almost as much confusion for the hard of thinking as time zones do. So Pandora's box it is then. I Just came across this one.

I once had a minor disagreement with someone from Texas. This took place in the US (obviously). He remarked on how well I spoke English. I said, “well I’m from England so it’s hardly surprising”. He gave me a blank look, evidently not understanding my point. I added “you see the language, ‘English’ was named after the country, ‘England’”. He looked at me in a way that I interpreted as a mixture between confusion and pity, before replying “no, you named your country after our language”. He was completely serious.
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I love this stuff. I’m a massive fan of this sort of thing from Diane Morgan.

 
I was a travel agent for many years. I got this all the time. “Why does it take longer to get home than it takes to get there?” Was one of the more frequent queries. On explaining the different time zones I was often confronted with “ that’s stupid why can’t they just have UK times on the tickets?” 😱 Oh Gawd! When I started rolling my eyes out loud I decide it was time to persue another career!
 
helli said:
I remember overhears a couple of Americans explaining why it took longer to get to Europe than return. They understood time zones. The reason for the longer flights was due to the direction of the Earth:s rotation.
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I've heard this, described as 'going uphill' :rofl:
 
When I had a proper job, I had a colleague who dealt with Americans all the time. He threatened to get a globe made which had the USA on one side and small blob round the other side labelled, "Everwhere Else". He thought that most of the people he came across would find it easier to relate to.

He also spoke regularly to somebody who had a view of one of few roundabouts in the US from his elevated office window and the conversation was continually interrupted by him reporting the collisions, near misses and general confusion it caused.
 
helli said:
I remember overhearing a couple of Americans explaining why it took longer to get to Europe than return. They understood time zones. The reason for the longer flights was due to the direction of the Earth's rotation.
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There is a grain of truth in this, though they've got it the wrong way around. Flights from the US to Europe are typically shorter due to being able to hitch a ride on/in the jet stream. Perhaps that partially cancels out the timezone issues :D
 
I was about to more or less say the same thing in that there is almost always a tail wind travelling from the US here, so that must be why it is quicker. 😉
 
SimonP said:
There is a grain of truth in this, though they've got it the wrong way around. Flights from the US to Europe are typically shorter due to being able to hitch a ride on/in the jet stream. Perhaps that partially cancels out the timezone issues :D
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They were not referring to the jet stream. They were only talking about the planet rotating.
Although I may have it the wrong way round for the shortest journey.
 
I wonder if they are confusing the whole “time travel” thing? Where apparently, the further you go from the earth & the faster you travel. Time “slows down” in relation to everyone else on the planet’s surface. (I think it’s been noticed with clocks on low orbiting satellites?)
 
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