That DST thing, again

Last Sunday was the spring forward part of the fall back cycle. I'm not even working a job these days, and typically don't have to be anywhere in particular at an hour imposed on me, and certainly not an uncivilized hour. And yet, here it is Wednesday afternoon, and I'm still kind of messed up. It feels like I should have just finished coffee and be working on some writing, and yet it's 1:19 in the afternoon. Granted we were up a bit late last night, and I didn't sleep well, so slept in a bit more than usual.

But holy doodle, it seems like I'm running late and I hate that feeling. It reminds me of the time when I was periodically visiting Richmound SK to do software training and data integrity feedback. Richmound isn't the middle of nowhere, but it's well along the way. There are no hotels there or nearby. The closest are in Medicine Hat, about an hours drive away. 

Visits there always had the dance of double checking when DST started or ended. Saskatchewan is sensible in some ways, in that they stay on Central Standard Time year round. So during the summer, visits there only have to account for the hour's travel time. During the rest of the year, it's two hours to be accounted for, with me wanting to push for the later starting time. 

Except the staff at remote locations typically have priorities that do not include training. If they get started on something else, they might not show up. I've even had operators perk up on hearing an alarm during class, and say "Oh shit, XXXX is covering for us, and he doesn't know" and they ran. I didn't see them again.

Going further back, working at the City plant, on a rotating shift. There was no provision for the time change in our schedule or pay. At the appointed hour we would dutifully change all the clocks. During the spring forward it was suddenly an hour later and we would only work 11 hours. The times we turned the clocks back made for a long shift, even if we did take the extra hour as a break.

I wish that Alberta would pick MST and stick with it year round. I think I could cope with doing the DST version year round. The 2021 referendum to go to permanent DST was pretty well evenly split, leaning slightly toward sticking with the current system. I think it should have asked about staying with MST permanently, and I suspect that would have passed. 

A random winter sunset for you.

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Yukon

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Double Exposure