Daylight Savings Is Coming
We’re on the verge of having a new schedule, again. The changing of the clocks is coming this weekend. It’s that “Spring Forward, Fall Back” thing. I personally am not a huge fan. I’ve never really understood the logic of it. Seems like we should just adapt to longer and shorter days and live with it.
I’ve heard the reasoning as “good for agriculture” – um, great, but farmers work in the dead of early morning darkness anyways … It’s so the kids are safer walking to school … Yeah, that’s a nice story, for 1890…
It seems to me that if we could all just agree on a set time, we could harmonize the global clocks and life would be easier.
Coordinating multiple schedules is hard enough, let alone for weird time zone issues. This week I’m working with a coaching client who has hired a web designer out of India. For some unknown reason India is 13 AND A HALF HOUR ahead of us. I understand the 13 hours, it’s that half hour that confuses me.
What’s that about?
And it’s not like weird time zones are an international issue. Arizona has their own set of wackiness. They refuse to comply with the Federal mandated time, which is one issue, then they have Native American reservations, some of which use Pacific Time, some use Arizona Time and then there are pockets of state territory inside of Native American territory.
Why all this craziness? I imagine it’s because of attempts at self-determination. As various governmental bodies have decided to assert themselves, this is the result. Poorly thought out, hodge podge, patchworks of rules and regulations seem to be the norm of humanity.
This playing out on a grander scale with the current nail biter of a drama with the inartful exit by the United Kingdom from the EU. The United Kingdom is a Sovereign state that is made up of states (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). They voted to leave the European Union two years ago, and in theory were going to negotiate the divorce strategy in what is commonly referred to as Brexit.
But like most divorces, it became uglier than anyone anticipated, and no one wanted to deal with the details, so now on the eve of their division there are a whole host of problems that are poised to cause economic havoc, as well as personal trouble to the citizens and residents of the UK.
The lack of planning and coordination for Brexit extends from the mundane, like what type of shipping pallets are acceptable (currently the UK has a shortage of the type that will be allowed into the EU) to the tragic, like my friend Maggie who is an Australian Citizen, resident in Scotland, who is now in a legal limbo of work status. For years she had no problems due to the cozy working relationship with all the aforementioned countries. However, now that there will be new regulations, her employability is unknown in Scotland, and the EU, which means that no company wants to risk hiring her for fear of running afoul of whatever eventual law is in place.
It’s frequently said that a confused buyer says No. That’s certainly been my experience. Which is why I would prefer the world to stop this madness of daylight savings, weird time zones and lack of a coordinated plan.
However, for better or worse, I don’t run the world, I barely run my family law office. Seems like I have to answer to judges, bureaucrats and clients on a regular basis so I think I will just continue to do the best I can, change the clocks every six months and plan on being either early or late for a week.
David Pisarra is a Los Angeles Divorce and Child Custody Lawyer specializing in Father’s and Men’s Rights with the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He can be reached at dpisarra@pisarra.com or 310/664-9969. You can follow him on Twitter @davidpisarra
