Words of advice from someone whom I believe to be a savvy business traveler.\u00a0 Me.\u00a0 Don’t travel one time zone away from your home station on the weekend that you’re to switch the clocks an hour for Daylight Saving Time.\u00a0 On my last trip to Houston, I experienced a humbling feeling of helplessness on Sunday morning when I couldn’t answer one of the most simple questions we routinely ask ourselves – what time is it?\u00a0 And here’s why.<\/p>\n
First, note that when I landed in Houston, well aware that we were to push our clocks ahead at some point during my visit, I made the conscious decision not to change my watch when I landed.\u00a0 Thus I would leave my watch in Eastern Time despite being in Central Time.\u00a0 In essence, my watch was one hour ahead already.\u00a0 This way, I wouldn’t have to change my watch Sunday morning when I woke but instead, once I landed again back in Eastern Time.\u00a0 In essence, I saved myself one watch turn.\u00a0 Tuck this piece of information away for safe keeping.<\/p>\n
On Saturday afternoon when I returned to my guest room and before the scheduled time change, I had noticed that my housekeeper had already very proactively adjusted my clock for the next day.\u00a0 This was great, I thought to myself, now I don’t have to worry about doing it myself.\u00a0 I could simply set the alarm for the precise time I wished to rise.\u00a0 And that’s exactly what I did.\u00a0 Seeing as I needed to be in session at 8:00a, I set the clock for 6:45a, since I also needed to pack up my belongings and check out.<\/p>\n
What I didn’t realize and what I surely couldn’t know, was that my clock would also automatically spring forward an hour in the middle of the night to account for the time change.\u00a0 Not only couldn’t I know that unless I stayed up all night watching the clock, but I surely couldn’t intuitively deduce that when my alarm rang in the morning, since it very reliably rang the time for which I’d set it, 6:45a.\u00a0 And so I shaved and I showered and then returned to the bedroom.\u00a0 It was still friggin’ dark for what should have been just after 7:00a.\u00a0 Now I expected it to be darker than usual when I awoke – this wasn’t my first Daylight Saving experience – but it seemed peculiarly dark on this morning.\u00a0 And so it aroused my suspicion that perhaps it wasn’t the time I thought it was.<\/p>\n
First stop, my cell phone and not my watch since I had left that in Eastern time, or at least yesterday’s version of Eastern time.\u00a0 My cell phone now said 6:07a.\u00a0 Hmmm.\u00a0\u00a0 Could I trust that?\u00a0 Did it perhaps not adjust?\u00a0 I flipped up my laptop believing that the time on that would remain in Eastern time.\u00a0 It said 7:10a.\u00a0 Okay, but am I sure it adjusted?\u00a0 If it hadn’t, well then it was 7:10a Central time, wasn’t it?\u00a0 Oh man, now what.\u00a0 I know, I can call the hotel operator.\u00a0 Surely she knows the answer to this simple question.<\/p>\n
She told me it was just about 6:15a.\u00a0 Surely I could trust her, right?\u00a0 So I probed further with an “Are you sure?”\u00a0 Since she had been there all night and didn’t remember when the computers changed times.\u00a0 Are you kidding me?\u00a0 And so I did what anyone would do next, trust Google.\u00a0 I entered in a question that apparently was a very common question, “What time is it?” and Google returned with a very unfancy, no frills, screen that flashed in a large font, 6:17a, Houston, CDT.
\nNo question I’d be on time this morning.\u00a0 I’d gotten up an hour earlier than I wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Words of advice from someone whom I believe to be a savvy business traveler.\u00a0 Me.\u00a0 Don’t travel one time zone away from your home station on the weekend that you’re to switch the clocks an hour for Daylight Saving Time.\u00a0 On my last trip to Houston, I experienced a humbling feeling of helplessness on Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n