January 6, 2023
For the winter of 2021-22 I did a little experiment: I stayed on Daylight Saving Time. (Or, if you prefer, I shifted to Atlantic Standard Time. Same result of being on UTC-4 all winter.) This year I went back to keeping the same clock as everyone else.
By itself, not shifting the clock back had three effects:
- No jet lag, which was the point of the experiment
- It was at least a little light after work on all but the shortest days. That was nice.
- It stayed dark for a long time in the morning. I drank a lot of coffee last winter.
All in all I'd just about call it a wash. Not having my circadian rhythm out of whack for a few days was a plus, as was the bit of light in the evening. But staying dark until 8 in the morning was rough. It just about canceled out the positives.
Those effects were small compared to what happened from being on a different clock than everyone else:
- I was productive in the morning, because I logged on an hour before everyone else
- Afternoons were a pain in the ass, because everyone else wanted to talk to me as I was trying to wrap up for the day.
- Restaurants were basically empty because for everyone else my dinner time was barely 5:00.
The second of those was the most annoying. I was pretty consistently staying online later than I should have because everyone else still had an hour or so left in their day and expected I did too. Even the people that I told I'd changed my hours for the winter did it.
But I kept it up all winter, and in March everyone "caught up" to me. Overall, I think the good just barely outweighs the bad if we were to stay on UTC-4 year-round. It keeps daylight hours a bit more aligned with how we use them. (Alternately, we could try to convince everyone that business hours should be 8-4, but somehow agreeing to fuck with the clocks twice a year is easier.)
What I won't be doing is making the change just for myself. The cons of being shifted relative to coworkers just don't make the pros worth it. Maybe I'll give it another shot when I win the lottery and don't have to worry about who's online when any more.
