Americans, what’s the time difference like in your country?

28 comments

1. Gotta subtract one to three hours. That’s about it.

   I will admit to calling my sister way early in the morning more than once. I know she is up by like 6 am which is 7 am my time and I am up by 6 am. I have called her early more than once.

   She makes up for it by occasionally calling me at like midnight.

2. All my family is in the same time zone but i work nights so i still have instances where i go to call or text someone and then realize it’s not an appropriate time so i wait until it is. I’d imagine it’s a very similar situation

3. It’s mostly annoying for sports games and how they’ll run later for the east coast.

4. I keep my watch set to home time when I travel. Other than that, you just have to know the time difference. Its not a big deal and you plan accordingly.

   Most people, especially sports fans interestingly enough, can hear a city and be able to know the difference and then add or subtract accordingly.

5. Parts of Florida are actually in another time zone. So it’s not just anyone across the country. if I called someone in Pensacola I have to double check with them exactly which time they meant. Is that your time or mine? Because we’re an hour different

6. We have 4 time zones, not counting Alaska and Hawaii. Eastern, Central, mountain and Pacific. It is a three hour difference between the east coast and west coast. So yeah of you are calling someone across the country you do have to take the time zone into account.

7. Occasionally when dealing with the business on the West Coast I have to keep the time difference in mind, especially if I want to call them when it’s morning for me but they don’t open yet for a couple hours.

   I have some family on the west coast but we very rarely talk, when we do I just keep the difference in mind, it’s only 3 hours so it’s not like it’s lunch time for me and theyre in bed

8. Between one and three hours in the contiguous US, up to 5 hours at Hawaii.

   14 hours if you want to include territories.

   Not something that has meaningful impact in day to day life save for business calls from coast to coast. Think similar to the effort you have if you are calling someone in the US.

9. It’s mostly annoying when calling a business on the east coast and they’re already closed for the night or having to wake up early if you need to call first thing.

10. My parents just came back to New Jersey yesterday morning after spending two weeks in Hawaii. It was weird talking to them at 7PM and they were just getting back from lunch.

11. I work with folks in several times zones and it’s not too bad, you just need to be cognizant of it. Worst thing is saying eastern STANDARD time and feeling a bit rude when someone probably treats Pacific as “standard” on the West Coast where they live. Everyone knows what pacific/central/mountain/eastern means since all national TV drills it into breaks and ad bumpers to make sure people don’t miss their local broadcasts.

12. Two to three hours

13. I work on the East Coast, but most of my team is in Greater Seattle. It’s kinda nice, honestly. I never have meetings super early, I have a few hours to get stuff done or relax before everybody wakes up and starts firing teams messages or emails, etc.

14. I live in Pacific, my business partner is in Eastern, our clients and partners are scattered from Pacific to GMT. I think it works out pretty well for me. People are often respectful of my time zone when it comes to morning meetings, and usually they don’t schedule anything after hours for themselves. So, I effectively have a six hour workday, and anything after that six is focus or fuck off time.

15. My family is in California, so 3 hours behind me.

16. I have family on the other side of the world in malaysia. Time difference for me is being 15 hours behind them.

17. It’s fine, but once in a while it gets complicated or just funny.

    I live on the east coast and went to a university online that’s in Arizona, which is two hours behind me, but also doesn’t observe daylight saving time, so for half the year it’s 3 hours behind. When I had assignments due at midnight, for me they were due at either 2 or 3 AM depending on the time of year.

    I had a group project with a classmate in Arizona and another in California. Scheduling meetings was difficult because of the time difference.

18. If you travel for work, living on the East Coast is the best spot.

    The further west you travel, the more you’ve gained as far as time zones go.

    Like— if you’re not a morning person in NY, fly to SF for work and all of a sudden you’re a morning person.

    ——

    But the country isn’t so wide as to bring jet lag into play.

    I’m calling bullshit on any person coming in from California claiming jet lag

19. Theres like 5 time zones for the whole country

20. The vast majority of Americans live in one of four adjacent time zones, though I think counting Alaska, Hawaii and the territories we span a total of 8.

    Linus Media Group in Vancouver does a weekly podcast called the WAN Show. They start streaming at 4:30 PM Pacific. I’m in the Eastern time zone, so the show doesn’t start until 8:30 for me.

    Something that I’ve been asked about by people from nations that fit in one time zone, “What does the TV mean by “nine eight central?” The same TV network, or sometimes even the same station, will broadcast the same program simultaneously in the Eastern and Central time zones, at 9PM Eastern, which is 8PM Central. I believe you’d see something similar in the West, for Mountain/Pacific, or for live events of national interest like major league sports or a President’s speech or something they’d occasionally read out all four.

    It’s been awhile since I got rid of cable television, but I remember a lot of cable networks had a habit of broadcasting evening programming in repeating 4-hour blocks. Here on the East coast the shows that ran from 6PM-10PM would repeat from 10PM-2AM. Essentially that way you could tune in anywhere in the country at 6PM and see the same block of programming, but not necessarily in the same order.

21. It’s annoying if you are living on the West Coast, Hawaii, or Alaska and have to call a business on the East Coast. I’d have to call by 1 or 1:30 to reach anyone.

    On the flip side, with sports, we get to watch games all day without having to stay up really late at night.

22. One thing that always gets me is when working late and doing video calls with people in the same timezone. It can be dark for a person in Chicago but light out still for someone in Omaha for example. They have a 30 minute sunset difference.

    The same goes for North/South due to the Earth’s tilt. Duluth to Austin, Tx (both on the same freeway separated by 1000+ miles) is also a 30 minute sunset difference. It’s more than an hour difference in the opposite direction in the winter though. Granted Austin is a few degrees West.

23. When I was an over the road driver it was important, because your delivery times were set to destination time zone. So if you picked up a load in Portland Oregon that delivered to Miami, you subtract 3 hours in trip planning.

24. Hawaii has no daylight savings so the West Coast is 2 or 3 hours difference depending on the time of year.

25. It’s 3 hours difference so… Not that crazy.

    That said, I think having family on the opposite coast isn’t super common. Most people live within 100 miles from where they were born. So usually you don’t need to worry about time zones in your day to day unless you happen to live near the border between two time zones.

26. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned (or much) is it does get to be a pain when you are flying west to east. You lose a lot of hours crossing time zones.

    Flying from Los Angeles to Atlanta is a long distance. It’s so long it takes 4.5 hours. So you would think if you left Los Angeles at noon that you would get to Atlanta at 4:30 PM.

    But, no. You get there at 7:30 PM because you crossed three time zones. So you have gone on a flight without leaving your country and have spent almost eight “hours” in transit.

    It pretty much kills the whole day. You might have to leave two hours ahead to get to the airport and have time for security check-in and then another hour at the other end to get to where you’re going and so it becomes an 11 hour day*. And you never left your country, or even flew the longest route.

    * And some people have much longer trips at either end.

27. When the Mets are on the west coast I dislike it because games start at 10PM eastern (7PM west coast) and go past midnight on the east coast. And god forbid the game goes into extras like that Mets-Giants game that ended at 3:30 AM eastern.

28. I add an hour with some people and subtract two for others.