20 Stories About What It’s Like to Live Between Time Zones

‘She has all but one clock in her house set to CST’
20 Stories About What It’s Like to Live Between Time Zones

The more we learn about time, the more fake it feels. Sure, texting a friend who lives across the country requires doing all kinds of mental math before you hit the send button, but that’s nothing compared to the topsy-turvy world of living and working in different time zones. 

One Redditor described their perplexing, time-defying commute for a 7 a.m. shift. They wake up, get ready and are on the road by 7. After driving for 40 minutes, they pull up to work, look at the dashboard and check the time: 7 a.m. Before punching in, they take a moment to “contemplate the existence and the arbitrary concept of time.”

Other Redditors who exist between time zones have shared the things they deal with on a daily basis, including an extra happy hour, two New Year’s Eve celebrations in one night and the pain of never being able to say “5 p.m.” without serious clarification.

gotnomemory 7y ago Wake up. Get ready. Work starts at 7. Leave house at 7. Get there at 6:40. Contemplate existence and the arbitrary concept of time. 7.2K ...
Illini88228 7y ago My wife has a one hour commute across the time zone border to work everyday. The downside is it takes her two hours to get to work. The upside is it takes her zero hours to get home. Also, flying is a massive pita because the nearest major airport is two hours across the time zone border, so by the time you account for the time change and the drive and the extra time for TSA, you have to leave for the airport like four or five hours before your flight departure. - 2.1K ...
CraigKostelecky 7y ago I make sure to turn my cell phone's automatic time zone switching off when I'm near the line as it can be very confusing and not always accurate when it switches. 3.4K
InsomniaticWanderer 7y ago It's annoying because you essentially operate on two timezones (3 or 4 if you live near a reservation or Arizona). Everything has a descriptor with it. So 5pm becomes 5pm MDT or 5pm CDT, but never just 5pm. - 1.1K ...
Curlyq97 7y ago Lived on the edge of a state where everyone lived in one time zone and worked in the next state (and time zone) over so everyone just used the state over's time zone, except the schools. So the real time zone was just referred to as school time and when you included a time in things you clarified whether it's next state over's time or school time. | didn't realize that other people's schools ran in their same time zones and grew up thinking everyone's schools ran an hour behind. 343 ...
Nghtmare-Moon 7у ago Tijuana / San Diego used to have different dates for daylights savings. Off by a week or so. It was madness. It affected everyone so much Tijuana switched with San Diego instead of with the rest of Mexico - 328 ...
slider728 7y ago I don't live near a time zone border, but I attended a wedding once. Got a wedding invitation listing the time of the ceremony and the time of the reception, just like any other wedding invitation. Never thought anything about it. We went to the wedding ceremony and a group of us were hanging around the church talking after the bride and groom left. Suddenly, someone realized that the location of the reception was located in the next time zone that was an hour ahead of where the wedding was located. Suddenly, it was a huge question
 7y ago Lived in Indiana where parts of the state are in different time zones - had a friend who lived closer west and even though we weren't too far away, he was an hour behind. Trying to schedule times to hang out was not just rare because of distance, but because of the fact one of us would show up an hour late or an hour early almost every single time. We mostly skype now - 757 ...
 f 7y ago 2 new years eve parties If its getting late in the afternoon and the shops are about to close you can go over the border and have an extra hour Same as crossing the border when the pubs going to close. 420 ...
pomakesbento 7y ago I used to live in Chicago (eastern side of central time zone) and West Michigan (west side of eastern time zone). I would go back and forth each week. Stays light really late in Michigan. My car clock is never correct. And I run an inn so I always have to specify check in time is 2pm EST. 105 ...
Not_so_super 12y ago Fort Pierre, South Dakota is in the Mountain time zone. Just over the river (maybe 10 yards) is Pierre, SD, in the central time zone. My cousin lives in Fort Pierre and leaves the house at 730, drives 10 minutes and is at her office in Pierre by 8:40. She says she has all but one clock in her house set to CST. - 874 ...
DEWSHO 12y ago When | lived in Indiana I lived a county that did not change times with daylight savings. Some counties around us did, others didn't, it was very confusing for the short time I lived there. - 369 ...
cvpeck . 12y ago | live on a half hour time zone (GMT+9:30). It's amazing how many major hardware and software manufacturers, and clock makers, don't realise that these exist. 345 ...
Stemnin 12y ago | grew in a small NB town next to Quebec. They're an hour behind and have great liquor prices (reserve). Also you get extra time for second breakfast. 184 ...
irishwonder 12y ago I live in Alabama, 15 minutes from the Georgia state line which is the dividing line between the US CST and ET time zones. | never have to cross the line, but my cellphone does occasionally switch to getting service from a tower in Georgia which sets the clock on my phone to ET time. It has caused me to be late to things before and I had to learn keep other sources of time around me and rely less on my phone for telling time. - 1.4K ...
Add_8_Years 10mo ago | grew up in NW Indiana. We would get TV channels from Chicago (Central time) and South Bend (Eastern time). We called it Michigan time and Chicago time. We'd also have to plan for appointments. | had relatives who lived across the zone line and we'd have to take account of that when we went to visit or we could be an hour late. - 432 ...
i_should_b_working_ 12y ago A local ski resort that | some times visit is on the pacific/mountain time border. You can ski two states and two time zones in one day at one ski resort. There is a bar near the ski resort that is in both Idaho and Montana. When 2am comes around, you just walk to the other side of the bar and have another hour to finish your drinks. 5 ...
70000 12y ago I live in QLD Australia I work in sales for an IT company most of our customers are currently in a period of a daylight saving and I am not. So unfortunately for me I have to start work at 8am. It sucks not a morning person at all would love to start at 9am instead. r/firstworldproblems - 160 ...
 10mo ago E Edited 10mo ago | remember once eating lunch at a restaurant in Jordan Valley, Oregon. I asked the waitress if we were on Pacific Time and she said we're actually on Mountain Time. So I checked my phone and asked why my phone was one hour behind and she said that since the town is close enough to Nevada to receive reception from their towers, people's phones would be automatically set to Pacific Time so they had to manually set their phones to Mountain Time. - 1.9K ...
 7y ago Back when Indiana didn't participate in daylight savings, you could watch two episodes of the Simpsons on the Ohio Fox affiliate, then switch over to the Indiana Fox station and watch two more, different, episodes. What a time to be alive. 8.5K ...

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