The Time and Date Conundrum

A few days back when I had to face a mysterious problem at work. For some reason a birthday was shifting by 1 when it was getting printed. Now if you are jumping up and down with your hands up in the air screaming I know! I know!, wait and hold that thought.

I was looking for all possible rational explanations of which day light savings seemed most reasonable. A coworker suggested difference in server times due to day light savings. Well guess what? the servers are in that one state AZ where there is no day light savings. So what else... What seems to be a simple issue in time became complex. After much pondering it happened in a single machine with the same date. No it is not an issue with leap year. It is 11th Oct 1942. What happened on that day you ask, well the world was at war. It was world war II period and for a few years in US they had only a 'war time' throughout the year. This was not the only occurrence of such meddling, there were others before and after this as well. And the software was brilliantly telling that the time component associated with the date was forcing it to believe it was 10th Oct and not 11th.

I was curious after this discovery and went to research more. It appears not just once but many times through out history man has changed the clocks and dates by months to align with calendars and religious dates. He has moved time around as if it were a pawn on the chess board. 

We think we understand Time and we have a feeling it is this one single continuous flow since the big bang. Turns out that is not true. For the way man has meddled with it, who knows we may very well be in 2018 already.

Waiting Time

Most irritable thing for a lot of people to do is waiting. What is the fun in that? Well it depends on the situation I think. Last week in a client status meeting I was waiting along with another colleague and the client manager for my manager to arrive. It was a wait of five minutes but seemed like an hour of silence. It may not be that bad when you are waiting for a friend or a boy/girl friend. I am talking about being on the waiting side not on the coming late side. Which means you do not have a control on the situation. You are anticipating that the person you are waiting on will come any minute.

Once I waited ten minutes and left thinking there is no meeting or I must have mistaken the location. But as I was leaving people came to the meeting :). I am not trying to judge here.. but just thinking on how it feels. I have been late to meetings myself both personal and professional.. Not "fashionably" late but a few minutes and from that side it just feels alright and normal, but on those occasions where I have to wait it is not so much fun. Funny thing is this thought never hits me when I am being late. I would not say this is always the case. For certain parties and locations like the Airport, Railway Station, Townhall meeting etc., I try to be way ahead of time.

Waiting is a pleasure or a pain based on the reason and environment. If it is waiting for food in a restaurant when you are hungry it can be annoying, but when you are not hungry and with a friend you would hardly notice the wait time amidst the chatting. Two different responses for the same stimulus but the environment plays a role here. Again complicated Human brain.