4 ms·

It's still simpler than time zones. If you schedule a meeting for time x, everyone knows when x is without having to do any translations.

by tsotha 14y ago

anonymouz 14y ago
But when scheduling the meeting for time x you'll have to look at the time offsets of all the participants to figure out if x falls into their work day or into the middle of the night. If you schedule a meeting at 13:00 UTC, is the Chinese guy still in his office? Is the one from the US already in his office? Instead of knowing their timezones and their offset you'll now have to know their office hours in UTC, which means things keep being just as complicated as they were before.
- finnw 14y ago
  Office hours are not consistent in local time either - there are cultural variations. If you want to know what (UTC) times the Chinese guy will be in his office, you need to ask him, not try to predict using offsets from UTC.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    In the approximately 10 countries that I work with - they are all available from 9:00 AMsh to 5:00 PMsh. This may be unique to my sector (Energy/Utilities) - but it's pretty much consistent Across Brazil /UK/ Portugal /Germany /Japan/ Singapore /Australia /Malaysia /US /Luxembourg) I don't work (yet) with anyone in China, so I can't comment on that country.
- zanny 14y ago
  You still have to ask for times they are available. That never changes. With UTC as the global time standard, you don't have to try to figure out time offsets. You just say "I'm available from 8 to 12" and they say "I'm available 5 to 9" and you make the call at 8. The alternative is "I'm available 3 - 7 London time", the other guy is available 12 - 4 Pacific Time, and you have to get out a calculator to figure out what those times actually are in relation to one another.
  - lazerwalker 14y ago
    For prescheduled meetings, you're absolutely right. "I'm available 8-12, and you're available 5-9, so let's chat at 8" is a clear improvement. But what if it's not a scheduled meeting? If it's the middle of the day where I am, and I need to give you a quick call to verify something, I need to figure out if it's appropriate to call and if you're likely to be in the office. Currently, that means converting my time to your time, as easy as looking up the offsets and doing a simple sum. Context clues make it easy to figure things out: if it's 10:30am your time, there's a high chance that you'll be in the office. If it's 3:30am your time, you're probably asleep. Sure, there are still cultural fudge factors at play (do you come into the office late, do you take a siesta, etc), but a ballpark estimate isn't hard. Assuming it's not an emergency, I don't care if I get your answering machine if you're in a meeting; I do care if you're offended that I woke you up. If we're both operating in UTC time, this conversion now requires cultural knowledge of what your working hours are before I can even get a big-picture idea of whether it's appropriate to call.
    - mnutt 14y ago
      If we all operated in UTC time, you would probably very quickly get a feel for when other people are at work. I'm on the east coast, and when working with people on the west coast I often just imagine them as working 12pm-9pm. Trying to remember the hours people work in Japan may be a problem, but I don't think it's any worse than trying to remember timezone conversions and I don't think it's a large enough problem to warrant varying the way people measure time. It may have made sense at the time, but today it is vastly overkill. That said, I doubt it will change anytime soon due to inertia.
      - tsotha 14y ago
        >I'm on the east coast, and when working with people on the west coast I often just imagine them as working 12pm-9pm. This is a good point. When you work with people in other time zones on a regular basis you tend to do the conversion to your time zone once and treat them like they were local people working odd hours.
    - 14y ago
InclinedPlane 14y ago
Look, UTC time already exists. How about you start an experiment. Whenever you schedule meetings or do anything that involves a time, use UTC. Maybe add in a little note about it in a signature or something, in case someone gets confused. Report back in a year on your results.
- zanny 14y ago
  The problem is that something like time standards requires collective initiatives to move towards them, because in all honestly 95% of people don't even know what UTC is. It is in the same class as an American (like myself) who does measurements in the metric system and pisses everyone else off because I don't use a system of measurements based off the length of a kings foot.

It's still simpler than time zones. If you schedule a meeting for time x, everyone knows when x is without having to do any translations.

by tsotha 14y ago

It's still simpler than time zones. If you schedule a meeting for time x, everyone knows when x is without having to do any translations.

anonymouz 14y ago

But when scheduling the meeting for time x you'll have to look at the time offsets of all the participants to figure out if x falls into their work day or into the middle of the night. If you schedule a meeting at 13:00 UTC, is the Chinese guy still in his office? Is the one from the US already in his office? Instead of knowing their timezones and their offset you'll now have to know their office hours in UTC, which means things keep being just as complicated as they were before.

finnw 14y ago
Office hours are not consistent in local time either - there are cultural variations. If you want to know what (UTC) times the Chinese guy will be in his office, you need to ask him, not try to predict using offsets from UTC.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  In the approximately 10 countries that I work with - they are all available from 9:00 AMsh to 5:00 PMsh. This may be unique to my sector (Energy/Utilities) - but it's pretty much consistent Across Brazil /UK/ Portugal /Germany /Japan/ Singapore /Australia /Malaysia /US /Luxembourg) I don't work (yet) with anyone in China, so I can't comment on that country.
zanny 14y ago
You still have to ask for times they are available. That never changes. With UTC as the global time standard, you don't have to try to figure out time offsets. You just say "I'm available from 8 to 12" and they say "I'm available 5 to 9" and you make the call at 8. The alternative is "I'm available 3 - 7 London time", the other guy is available 12 - 4 Pacific Time, and you have to get out a calculator to figure out what those times actually are in relation to one another.
- lazerwalker 14y ago
  For prescheduled meetings, you're absolutely right. "I'm available 8-12, and you're available 5-9, so let's chat at 8" is a clear improvement. But what if it's not a scheduled meeting? If it's the middle of the day where I am, and I need to give you a quick call to verify something, I need to figure out if it's appropriate to call and if you're likely to be in the office. Currently, that means converting my time to your time, as easy as looking up the offsets and doing a simple sum. Context clues make it easy to figure things out: if it's 10:30am your time, there's a high chance that you'll be in the office. If it's 3:30am your time, you're probably asleep. Sure, there are still cultural fudge factors at play (do you come into the office late, do you take a siesta, etc), but a ballpark estimate isn't hard. Assuming it's not an emergency, I don't care if I get your answering machine if you're in a meeting; I do care if you're offended that I woke you up. If we're both operating in UTC time, this conversion now requires cultural knowledge of what your working hours are before I can even get a big-picture idea of whether it's appropriate to call.
  - mnutt 14y ago
    If we all operated in UTC time, you would probably very quickly get a feel for when other people are at work. I'm on the east coast, and when working with people on the west coast I often just imagine them as working 12pm-9pm. Trying to remember the hours people work in Japan may be a problem, but I don't think it's any worse than trying to remember timezone conversions and I don't think it's a large enough problem to warrant varying the way people measure time. It may have made sense at the time, but today it is vastly overkill. That said, I doubt it will change anytime soon due to inertia.
    - tsotha 14y ago
      >I'm on the east coast, and when working with people on the west coast I often just imagine them as working 12pm-9pm. This is a good point. When you work with people in other time zones on a regular basis you tend to do the conversion to your time zone once and treat them like they were local people working odd hours.
  - 14y ago

InclinedPlane 14y ago

Look, UTC time already exists. How about you start an experiment. Whenever you schedule meetings or do anything that involves a time, use UTC. Maybe add in a little note about it in a signature or something, in case someone gets confused. Report back in a year on your results.

zanny 14y ago
The problem is that something like time standards requires collective initiatives to move towards them, because in all honestly 95% of people don't even know what UTC is. It is in the same class as an American (like myself) who does measurements in the metric system and pisses everyone else off because I don't use a system of measurements based off the length of a kings foot.