Y2K(7) - This Time, It’s For Real
If you’re like me, you’ve heard news about Daylight-Saving Time being 3 weeks earlier this year. And if you’re like me, you probably dismissed it immediately. My thinking: “Someone will tell me when to change my clocks… so why do I have to worry?”
Of course there’s all the buzz about this being the next Y2K… but if that’s the case, doesn’t that just mean nothing will happen even though we expect it to?
Well chaos struck today when my manager tried to schedule my performance review on March 19 - after this year’s DST turnover and before the standard date for DST. During our meeting today, she said, “Yeah… I had to schedule it over lunch, I hope that’s OK. We’ll meet from 11 - 1.” I agreed, returned to my desk, and found the time blocked off from 12 - 2.
This prompted a confusing discussion. “Did you mean 12 - 2?” “I meant 11 - 1, but I could mean 12 - 2.” “Are you sure? Because it’s showing up as 12 - 2.” “Well, let’s just do 12 - 2.” She then sent me a new meeting request:
Notice the discrepancy? I circled the meeting time according to my computer to call out what’s happening. Interesting effect, no? We haven’t tracked down the actual cause of the issue, but there is one interesting note - I’m running a Vista machine, and folks who sent me meeting requests from XP machines all seem to be off by an hour. Still, my manager’s appointments are also off, and not in the same direction (some go an hour before, others an hour later).
Regardless, there might actually be something to the warnings this year. Worldwide chaos? Maybe not. But definitely meeting confusion.
It’s not just you at work. We’re getting the same issue too. It’s confusing especially since we have team members in another time zone.
Comment by Samantha — February 12, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
I’ve been told that the issue is being vigorously pursued over here. Mostly I wanted to post since, unlike Y2K, this has actually had a noticeable effect on my work.
Comment by zaiss — February 12, 2007 @ 7:35 pm
I am going to ignore the problem. If I schedule a meeting at 11am, it might be wrong for everyone at my office but maybe would be right for everyone in the eastern timezone? Oh no, nevermind. I’ll just walk around and grab people out of their cubes for meetings for a few weeks.
Comment by Samantha — February 13, 2007 @ 7:43 pm