Saving daylight in clocking confusion

My first thought was that I was in the wrong office or building. Where is everyone? I wondered anxiously as I craned my neck to look past row after row of empty office chairs and desks. Working for the Indian unit of a multi-national company, I was on a short assignment at our headquarters in London and was already overwhelmed with the plethora of things to learn and get adjusted to.

Following the sound of a vacuum cleaner, I came face to face with the cleaning crew, whom I had never encountered before. Convinced that I was an intruder in a place where I did not belong, I picked up my laptop bag and began my exit from the premises when I heard someone calling out to me, ‘Hey buddy, did you forget?’

I was happy to see my friend and colleague but what did I forget? I checked myself to make sure no part of my office attire had gone missing. Then my English friend solved the mystery by saying, ‘Today marks the end of daylight saving ‘time’—implying that I was very early to the office.

As more office staff started trickling in, I realised that, overnight, the clock had been set back by an hour. I later learned that the concept of daylight saving had been adopted to make more efficient use of natural daylight and save energy in places like the United Kingdom and the United States. In simple terms, the clock is moved forward by an hour in March and set back by an hour in October/November, around 2 am on a Sunday—and it is a different Sunday in different countries. It sure is confusing and takes some getting used to, even after years of living in the West.

The problem became all the more complicated when I moved to the US, where there are more than four time zones due to the geographic spread of the country. And, just to add to the fun, there are a handful of states that do not follow the practice of adjusting their clocks twice a year. However, as everyone else is changing their respective times, confusion reigns. To add another variable to the equation (mathematically speaking, of course), people like me calling various other people back home in India have to be extra vigilant to avoid waking people up at four in the morning.

The pros and cons of changing time twice a year have been debated ad nauseum in various circles—business, social, and political—with no clear reasoning. There are arguments stating that this helps farmers do farming during daylight—quickly dismissed as nonsense by the antagonists. There are even hilarious explanations, such as, ‘Drivers can more clearly see people jogging and walking their dogs in daylight.’.

The best comment I have heard in favour of daylight saving came from my then teenaged daughter: “I can get an extra hour of sleep once in a year!”