Tired and Grumpy?
Tired, Sore, Headache Originally uploaded to Flickr by Matt Brett.
It’s been a rough week all around. I thought I would be okay with this new-fangled early Daylight Saving Time change, but I’m not. I’m not even talking about all the problems getting all the computers, machines and gadgets on the right time. I can deal with that. It’s the actual, physical, living the change at this time of year that I have a problem with. The first day was okay, but since then the mere one hour change has disrupted my sleep habits completely, so I am walking around very tired. I see the same thing in everyone around me.
I don’t know what all the other provinces have done (I am too tired to look it up) but in Ontario it was decided to go along with the change in the U.S. Of course we didn’t have much of a choice. I read somewhere that the idea this would save energy was based on 20 year old data, and that it would have little effect today. See also this article from ABC Science Online. I mean, we don’t really get any more daylight, do we? It is just shifted around in time, right? It’s not like we’ve managed to make the sun stay up for a longer period, is it? Sheesh.
So, in a northern climate such as ours it has meant one less hour of sleep (and subsequently many other lost hours of sleep) at a time of year when we are all fighting colds and the nasty stomach bug that is going around. How smart is that? I’m also noticing that any situations that previously were slightly tense between people are now just blowing up. For me the whole week has been hellish as I have put out fires in every aspect of my life. I even notice all the other posts on Slaw this week have been a little, shall we say, terse. No one is really feeling in a happy, out-going, chatty mood.
So, was the new Daylight Saving Time a good idea? Um, I think it was a BIG mistake.
I feel your pain. The time change at this point was a dumb idea. I think we should join Saskatchewan and drop out of this spring-forward fall-back occilation.
To soothe your sore head, you might take a listen to Sleepbot Environmental Broadcast, which plays oh-so-soothing sounds all the time. As they say, “Live on-line sedation is available 24 / 7 / 365 and all without a doctor’s prescription.”
URL for live broadcast is http://www.sleepbot.com/ambience/cgi/listen.cgi/listen.pls
Since this blog is also about technology within the law, our tech staff went through hell last weekend, with multiple BlackBerry patches and I gather that other firms faced similar problems. I’m told that Ogilvy Renault had to do a complete reboot of their national network because of server issues.
There is significant controversy about whether the Bush Administration’s little time shift will actually accomplish anything positive.
From a personal perspective, it was pleasant to have a 6 hour time difference going over to Europe, but only facing a 5 hour shift on our return.
Yeah, the patches that didn’t work and had to be re-done were a real pain according to our IT staff here. At home it seemed easier. My cell phone changed because it is linked back to Bell, my Macbook changed automatically because it is linked back to the Apple mothership, and everything else we change manually anyway.
I’m hoping with extra sleep over the weekend things will start to look better. I appreciate the relaxation sounds link! I always thought British Airways to be brilliant having a relaxation channel on their flights. I don’t know why more airlines don’t have that.
I wholeheartedly agree that things were better before. The days were already much longer by then, so the change just mean’t that we got up in the dark (well, you did if you walk two dogs at 6:30 a.m.). I’m pretty sure we ended up using more power, not less.
I love the earlier time change. As as student, I don’t have to get up in the dark anyways. And the extra hour of daylight in the evening gave us more time to enjoy the great weather this week in Toronto. If it was up to me, we’d stay on DST all year round.
Definitely part of the problem is changing back and forth. If we didn’t have to make the change, it wouldn’t be so bad.
Evan,
While I agree with you that the weather has been great here in Toronto this week, I have to disagree with you about loving the time change. I see more fatigue here at the law library at York not only in the staff, but in the students as well. This at a time when students are beginning to rush around getting research done at the last minute for their papers, and getting ready to study for exams. The old way was much better.
Count me among the unimpressed with the new time change — and try doing it with a newborn and a two-year-old around the house to boot. All week long, the clock hasn’t lined up with the reality of what I see and feel outdoors. It usually takes a day or so to adjust to this under normal DST, but this is coming up on a week. Bad idea all round.
While I’m happy to lay any number of sins at the feet of the Dubya administration, this one is actually Congress’s fault — that august body passed a law in 2005 making all this possible. But the real culprits here, to my mind, are the Canadian provinces who foolishly copied Congress’s change in its beta-test year, rather than waiting to see what the effect of the move would be. Just another reason to throw the bums out….
I’m glad we don’t have to change our clocks here in Saskatchewan, Connie. Nonetheless, we seem to be experiencing the same general mailaise. No matter the time on the clock, the mood can be expected to lift the first day we don’t have to bundle up in winter coats and boots. A more immediate lift in spirits might come in the form of green beer tomorrow! Happy St. Pat’s, everyone!
Uhmmm…. back up a moment, here, folks.
Let’s put the hardware/software issues resulting from politcal expediency (that’s a polite way to spell stupidty, but let’s not tell anybody, ok?)
Not meaning to belittle the adjustment problems for those whose biological clocks are finicky …
The “day” still has 24 hours, right?
Whenever 8 or 7 or 6 am was hasn’t changed in terms of what comes before or after. The same applies for the the pm hours, right?
If the problem is that one’s sleep/wake habits are off and haven’t yet adjusted then it’s a problem one would have faced 3 weeks from now.
I think there’s just a bit of the herd mentaility in blaming current snappishness on the earlier time change. Cabin fever is cabin fever – and those who are already displaying it would be even if we were still in EST (the time zone, not the California fad )
That’s my view, for whatever it’s worth
Cheers :-)
David Cheifetz
I honestly didn’t think it would make a difference myself. And yet, I’ve never noticed it quite so bad as this year.
I think it is the time change, plus the cold weather/lack of sunlight, plus people already feeling poorly with low immunity (from recent colds/stomach bugs) that has had the combined effect. In 3 weeks time, more of us will have had a bit of sun and will have recovered from the bugs going around. This varies depending on where you are located geographically, of course.
This is a bit late, but I simply changed the timezone on my PDA, for the a few weeks, rather than worrying about patches. In my case, I moved it to Greenland. However, you in the Eastern timezone could move your timezone to Atlantic for a few weeks; maybe it would help you feel closer to the Maritimes! :)
And somehow my laptop (as well as my macbook) managed to make the time change without my doing anything. I don’t think I even ran any updates on the thing. I don’t know how that happened. I just figured I could live with the one hour difference for a few weeks.