Time change — Blog

The itch to spend

Hello! I’ve returned from a brief one week hiatus. Thanks to daylight savings time changing the clock one hour forwards, I spent last week recovering from the regulation-imposed jet lag. Even a person like me with relatively clean sleeping patterns struggled to acquiesce to the time change. Going to sleep at the new “normal time” was difficult, and so is waking up at the new normal time. For the first time this whole year, I actually hit the snooze button. Groggy. Where did the sun go in the morning?

It went to the evening hours, obviously. I concede that it is indeed quite nice to still have some semblance of sun after getting off work. Last Friday I had a lovely time with my friend and her pet dog at the local park. I guess on that alone, I would vote to keep daylight savings time constant, rather than having standard time year round. What the powers must do is simply pick one! All this time change nonsense absolutely wrecks our circadian rhythm for at least one whole week. It’s not healthy in the slightest.

You know that feeling when you’ve got some free money in the bank account, and you get that itch to spend it? How can we not: we get bombarded with advertisements every single day. The Internet services we know and love are basically advertising machines. I have started paying for YouTube Premium, however. No ads when I watch YouTube. Ever.

So I was looking at (finally) getting a standing desk to replace this IKEA Galant that I’ve had since my college days. In the name of health (I’d be able to adjust the height of the desk specific to me) and novelty (who doesn’t like a fresh new bamboo work surface?) I began a search on the Internet. Turns out the major players in the standing desk market all seem to be having Spring sales. What would have been a thousand dollars - for the specification of table I want - is now only $700.

After sleeping on it, I decided against buying a standing desk. Primarily because it feels wrong to throw away a perfectly good table, albeit one that cannot adjust height. I don’t want to spend the time playing the Craigslist games in trying to sell the old one. Trashing such a bulky item also isn’t as simple as putting it in the bin. My IKEA Galant remains a sturdy and useable desk, so it remains.

DST blues

Another March, another move of the clock one hour forwards just so we can enjoy some modicum of sunlight past 6:00PM. Losing an hour on Sunday absolutely sucks, and the following workweek to come is even worse. At least on the Sunday of time change you can sleep in a bit to ward off the DST-induced “jet lag”; no such luck on Monday!

Good news for me is I typically wake up way earlier than I really need to for work. Therefore I have the option of sleeping in a little, if waking what is effectively one hour earlier than usual proves to be too challenging. I understand that most people are not like me, so ruined sleep patterns for the rest of you it is! At least for the first week after the clock change anyways.

I am going to keep complaining about daylight saving time until the powers at be get rid of it. I don’t care which timezone configuration they use: just pick one and stick to it! Why must we torture ourselves for two days out of the year voluntarily? I’ve yet to meet a single person who actually likes it when we forward or retard the clock on hour.

Since I’m a morning person, I actually would prefer we keep constant standard time, as opposed to always daylight saving time. My circadian rhythm is better suited to an early sunrise and early sunset. I hate it during the summer when the sun is still up past 8:00 PM, delaying the signals to my body that it’s time to wind it down. Again, I realize I’m in the minority here. I bet if there’s a public vote on which of the two to keep forever, daylight saving time would win.

But please, no more changing the clock. Pick one!