What, you ask, could possibly do this?
It's time change.
The flip back and forth between Daylight Savings (DST) and Standard Time has got to be the most annoying, useless piece of bureaucracy ever invented. Every spring and fall, as I suffer from:
- sleep disruption,
- disorientation about it being light/dark at <insert time of morning/evening here>,
- hunger pangs at innapropriate times of the day,
- and my dogs being upset at the disruption to their schedule,
I spend approximately a week cursing at the powers that be that allow this idiotic practice to continue. My symptoms read like a bad warning label on yet another drug we don't need. The very words 'time change' send a shiver down my spine, and create an impending sense of dread within the depths of my chest unparallelled in it's... ummm... dreadiness. It evokes a hatred in me so white hot, boiling, bubbling and otherwise... ummm... hot and hatred filled, that...
...well, I'm not sure what. You get the picture, though.
Saskatchewan (as in Canada, for the geographically challenged), although possessing a boring shape geographically and being relatively flat and featureless, has got this nailed, people! They are rebels, refusing to conform to the world bureaucracy by not changing their clocks during time change! They just float blithely along choosing whichever time zone suits their fancy as the seasons advance, effectively staying on Central Standard Time (or Mountain Daylight, if you prefer) year-round.
Oh if only my provincial politicians were so bold and rebellious!
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| Locations that do (blue), used to (orange), and never did (red) observe time change. Image: Wikimedia Commons |
There are actually a number of places in the world who no longer, or never did observe a change to DST. Notably, these locations are all more equatorially located than the northern latitudes I inhabit, but as the number of locations that do not observe time change increases and creep ever north and southward, I believe it is important to note something about these non-conforming countries.
When time change rolls around and they don't change their clocks, nothing happens! That's right, people, there are no consequences to not moving ahead or setting back your clocks! The economy and financial empires that dominate our modern world do not collapse, the country does not dissolve into a state of political unrest or outright civil war (recent Middle Eastern events being the exception, but this had nothing to do with time change, moreso time for a change), computers do not stop working, cars do not stop driving, cows do not stop mooing, fish do not stop swimming...
Need I go on?
According to Wikipedia, Daylight Savings Time was first proposed in 1895 by a New Zealand shift worker, who was also an avid entomologist in his spare time. He proposed a change such that he would have more daylight hours to persue his hobby in the evening after work. It wasn't adopted, and there were a few more proposals for such a change in the years that followed, but it wasn't until World War I that it was finally adopted somewhere... Germany. This was a bid to conserve coal for the war effort. And things kind of derailed (in my mind, at least) from there.
Various reasons for the adoption of DST have ranged over the years from financial, to those espousing benefits to one's health. However to date very few of these reasons have been proven to be valid, and the only real benefit has been to retailers, who see shoppers more willing to shop during daylight hours.
Given that the vast majority of the supposed benefits to a change to DST have since been debunked as having negligible, or even negative, value, why have we not gotten rid of this ridiculousness?
I think there is a provincial election coming up soon... I will cast my vote for anyone who runs on a campaign of ditching time change.
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| My very clever drawing of Saskatchewan. See how easy it is, people? |
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| Yup, still moo'ing... |
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| ...and still swimming. |
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