Thoughts with Richard Bleil
And here we are again, turning back the clocks. Daylight Savings Time is again here, everybody’s favorite time of year, when accidents are higher and more people are injured or killed by the attempt to prevent people from being injured or killed than perhaps any other day.
Yes, Daylight Savings Time is supposed to protect people, but instead studies show an uptick in injuries on this day because people are still too tired to focus. The original idea was to give people an extra hour of daylight to work and to come home in the light, but for about a week, school children will also be going to school, once again, before the sun rises. It makes no sense at all.
As far as Ben Franklin ideas go, this one was a real dog. For the life of me, I have no idea why it continues to be a thing. My prediction is that, not long after this posts, there will again be political movements and petitions to do away with Daylight Savings Time. There will be news articles about how unpopular it is, and how much support there is for political action to eliminate it altogether. And in their, well, wisdom, I guess, Congress will again begin a failed effort to make Daylight Savings Time permanent which would make the American time zones an hour off from the rest of the world.
It’s not entirely bad news. Interestingly, Daylight Savings Time is a benefit for Drive-In theaters. By putting sundown off by an hour, it gives people time to leave work and make it to the Drive-In in time to see the start of the movies, but sadly the Drive-Ins are struggling. Although they’ve made progress in a rebound lately (I work at one as a matter of fact), it’s still a niche market. The reality is that there are not many businesses that truly benefit from Daylight Savings Time. The anticipated savings in energy has yet to be demonstrated, and the costs are certainly not offset.
Frankly, I’ve never understood why the early risers are the ones who set the business day for America. If it gets too light earlier, then some businesses could simply opt to start their days earlier. I used to work for an analytical chemistry lab back in my industrial days where they did that. The company had a vote among all of the employees and decided to start the day at half past seven every day and leave at four thirty at the end of the day.
If you struggle with Daylight Savings Time, I have advice on how you can more easily adapt to the changes. Quit. Just quit and retire. That’s what I did. I quit and retired. I don’t need that noise, what the heck.
Ironically, this blog still makes me deal with the struggles of Daylight Savings Time. Although, in principle, you can choose the time that each post is published, it doesn’t work that way. I set that time for six in the morning, but it won’t publish until after this time and somebody logs onto my blog page. But why would anybody log onto my page, except to see the new post? So if it doesn’t publish, I don’t get the visitor I need to publish the post. Instead, I publish manually, if I’m awake as I typically am. The “new day” for this service is apparently on the West Coast as it begins, as I am writing this post, at two in the morning. In other words, if I publish after two, it counts as a new day in which I have published. By the time this does publish, that is after Daylight Savings Time, the “new day” begins not at two, but at three in the morning. To catch the new start to the day, I’ll have to stay up for yet another hour before I can post this. I know, I could just go to bed and publish the next day, but that’s hardly satisfying for my CDO.
In case you’re wondering, CDO is OCD but in alphabetical order LIKE IT OUGHT TO BE.
Benjamin Franklin is probably still laughing at us from beyond the grave. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the second greatest hoax in history, the first being the guy who said that we eat five hundred spiders in our sleep over the course of a lifetime which, of course, turned out to be a hoax. Much like my marriage was.
Bleil's Banter 