I live on the west coast and do work on the east coast, so I often have conference calls in several time zones. Pretty much every week, I mess up a time conversion. Sometimes, I put the meeting time in my calendar as three hours ahead, but other times, I do it backwards and enter it three hours behind. Often, I don’t know what time it is now, so the conversion is off, no matter which direction I go. Occasionally, the electronic calendar converts the meeting to Pacific Standard Time, but every now and then, the event magically appears in Eastern Standard Time. The result is that I am never quite sure what time the meeting is. It has become commonplace for me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Late is obviously more upsetting than early; the wrong day is the most alarming.
What I like about the internet, is that it is always the right time there. Online, I am rarely in the wrong time zone and I'm never late. I can begin whenever I arrive, no matter what time it is.
Is this freedom? Does this alleviate the daily constraints of hour-counting and structure? Or is it deepening my inherently upset sense of time, widening, bit by bit, the gap between my Self and other people?