One Man’s Argument Against Daylight Saving Time

Photo courtesy of local photographer Harry Kran-Annexstein of Cincinnati, Ohio. Check out more of Harry's beautiful frozen Cincinnati photos at Flickr.

My friend Stu and I were recently lamenting the bad weather. “Cheer up;” I told him, “spring is right around the corner. Daylight Saving Time starts next month!”

“I don’t understand Daylight Saving Time,” says Stu. “Time is a human construct anyway.” (Yeah, he’s one of those). “Why do we even have it?”

“Well,” I explained, “it was started for a number of reasons, mostly relating to saving energy, so we have longer days.”

Stu: “Changing the time doesn’t make the day longer. You do that yourself, by what time you get up or go to sleep.”

Me: “But we all follow the same clock. So if we get up later and stay up later, and have more sun, the day is actually longer.”

Stu: “Well I think it’s stupid. And I’m not doing it.”

Me: “What do you mean you’re not doing it? How can you not follow Daylight Saving Time?”

Stu: “I’m just not doing it. I’m not changing any of my clocks next month.”

Me: “Let me get this straight. So you, Stu, in addition to Arizona and some outlying US islands, will not adhere to Daylight Saving Time?”

Stu: “I’m not doing it.”

Me: “But what will your customers do?” (Stu is self employed too.) “How will they know what time to come over for appointments if you’re operating under a different time zone?”

Stu “They’ll have to get on my time zone.”

An updated list of areas in the U.S. that do not observe DST but instead stay on standard time all year round, for your consideration: AZ, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa. And Stu’s house.