But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.
> If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.
Its a whole lot easier (especially now that clocks can largely set themselves, but even before that) to change the clocks by an hour twice a year rather than every schedule (at least, all business hours and all schedules for everything else that is driven by common business hours, like transit schedules) with similar frequency.
I'm not a big DST fan, but DST is a better solution than your proposed alternative.
Clocks can change themselves as a technical matter. I haven't adjusted a clock for daylight savings in several years and I'm excited whenever I notice a theoretical possibility.
The time can change fairly simply because there's only one group of people who need to agree and, once they've agreed, it's binding also on those who disagree. For instance, here in Melbourne it's solely up to the Victorian parliament what timezone we're in and when we're in it. If a change is a contentious matter and after a year of debate it passes through parliament, everyone is subject to that.
Business schedules are harder because there's many many business each of whom would have to go through their local processes. Moreover, it requires the consent not simply of the majority, but of a significant enough supermajority. If 40 per cent don't bother, then the whole system is likely to be thrown into confusion and we can't predict what will happen next year.
Businesses could of course adopt a summer schedule of ten to six to complement their winter schedule of nine to five, but that requires activity on the part of a bunch of businesses who generally don't care enough and are generally happy with daylight savings.
Also, businesses are not subject to the will of their employees. Business leaders might be perfectly happy to knock off work an hour early and play golf while their employees are still toiling away in dingy factories. Consequently, daylight savings would be the preserve of the powerful. Governments are subject to the will of the electorate. If we want daylight savings, we vote in a government who will give it to us. (In principle, this is supposed to work because we vote in a government who is populated by people who are like us and well enough connected to us that they work in our interests. In most countries, ideology (usually neoliberal) has come to dominate parties which nominally care about worker's interests so there isn't as much of a connection. We then lie and say "technology made it all bad" because it's easier to say "those nasty programmers stuffed the world" instead of saying "if we serve the interests of the few the world starts to get really unpleasant".)
That makes _them_ the problem; anyway the local government should publish a one minute notice: "Remember I'ts # PM., it's time to leave work!" (on TV+radio+twitter) and that's it.
That seems like a distinction without a difference, though. If the government says, "Between x and y months, all work start and stop times will shift earlier by one hour", it has the same effect as moving the clock itself.
I should rephrase my comment: "That's effectively what DST is"
Not even a little bit the same; timezone are extremely crucial for communication, if people outside the state don't have to look up the current timezone to understand "3:00 PM" means exactly the same one month from now that's a win all round.
Also, now that everyone has a powerful computer in their pockets its extremely useful to register the times without changes based on regional laws.
What does "3:00 PM" mean? Serious question. If the government is shifting work hours at different times of the year, then "3:00 PM" will mean different things. It will be before school lets out sometimes, and after school lets out during other months. It'll be 2 hours before work ends, or only one hour.
I'm no fan of DST, I think we should pick a timezone and stick with it. My argument is that DST is better than having a massively coordinated change in work schedules, because that's even more complicated than just moving the hour hand twice a year.
"Massively coordinated" is just every news anchor being obligated to say "Remember today the work day starts at 9:00PM and ends at 7:00PM" (with casual reminders weeks before of course), that's it, has anybody even tried to see if that brings chaos or if is just a baseless myth?
Not all work shifts start and end at the same time, nor are they the same length. Some people work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, others do 4/10s. Bus drivers have to be working when others are commuting.
I understand that. The reason clock time is changed is so the agreed times of work across society don't have to coordinate. No organization is an island. If school shifts back an hour, but the office doesn't, the disruption for parents is significant.
Suppliers aren't going to shift their hours if their clients don't. Investment banks won't shift if the stock exchanges don't. There'd be no change since nobody could go first.
It's much simpler to decree the change on the clock than try to convince everyone to change their schedules in lockstep.
Again, I don't like DST. I wish my area would stay on "summer time" all year. Basically shift to the next time zone. But DST is better than the ad hoc solution that you're suggesting.
