Hi there. It has been a little while since I authored a "rant post," so why don't you join me for a bit of good-humored, blow-off-some-steam kvetching and complaining? 
Here's my deal, friends: I have a problem with people who set their clocks or personal timepieces to an incorrect time intentionally. For example, my mother-in-law sets some (but not all) of the clocks in her home 15 minutes fast. My sister-in-law sets some of her timepieces a whopping 30 minutes ahead of the correct time. Some of my other friends have told me over the years that they set their watches, clock radios, etc., to various and sundry incorrect times—usually ahead of the correct time.
The obvious question I have for these otherwise loving, kind, intelligent, and well-intentioned people is "Why in the world would you do such a thing?"
The standard response I receive is "Well, I set my clock(s) ahead to help me avoid being late for my daily appointments."
Um...okay. I can summarize my concern with this so-called 'skewed-time syndrome' in the following manner:
- Intentionally setting one's clock and/or watch to an incorrect time constitutes, in my opinion, a state of living that can only be characterized as living in denial
- Intentionally setting one's clock and/or watch to an incorrect time makes possible the propagation of false information to others (for instance, I may ask you for the correct time, and if you provide me the time on your watch and you forget to inform me that you set that watch 15 minutes fast, then I will walk away from our transaction with misinformation. This misinformation could have significant negative consequences for me in some unforeseen way)
What is my proposed solution to this problem? Let me lay it on you:
Set your clocks correctly, and set your alarms earlier!
For instance, if I have a difficulty with getting out of bed in the morning and arriving to work on time, then instead of monkeying around with the time on the clock (which to my pea brain seems like a lot of denial-based headgames), I can simply set the alarm a bit earlier to give myself some extra time on the front end.
These 'alarms' can also work well during the day. If you carry a PDA, like I do, then event reminders are helpful for keeping you on track with business or personal appointments.
Rant over. I want to end this blog post by issuing an important disclaimer. I make no bones about the fact that I am powerless to change the behavior of anybody but myself. Furthermore, my own best strategy for living in harmony with, say, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, etc., is to practice the age-old maxim live and let live.
So there you go. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
11 Comments
I never understood this until I realized that I was taking different routes on my daily dog walks depending on how “fast” I wanted the walk to go. The thing is, all the routes are very close to the same length. It’s just that some have more streets than others and “feel” longer. Time is so much about how we perceive it.
Mac,
Wow–thanks for schoolin’ me about this.
When I authored this post, I had the notion of “time as an absolute construct” stuck in my gourd.
I appreciate the reminder of the truth that time is, in reality, much more flexible and relative.
T
I set a few clocks ahead of others. I set my bedroom clock 15 minutes ahead because I never seem to be intelligent enough in the morning to realize that the clock is fast, and setting it ahead is the best way I’ve found to get up earlier in the morning. But no one sees this clock other than myself. I don’t keep clocks around my house because I don’t see the need to be constantly reminded of the time.
I also set my watch about 2 or 3 minutes fast because it’s so close to the real time that I don’t notice it and those 2 or 3 minutes are often the difference between being on time and being late.
Not to mention that the people who make a habit of setting their clocks ahead are aware that their clocks are set ahead. So there’s really nothing preventing them from procrastinating to fill those luxurious extra minutes and being late anyway.
I try to keep my clocks set to fairly close-ish to the “real” time. Our electricity goes out frequently, though, so sometimes “ish” is as good as it gets.
Then there’s the clock in my car. Where I live, we only instituted DST this year. My car is protesting by sticking to Indiana Eastern Time. Time being a relative thing, I sort of like the idea of my car being its own mobile time zone.
Aw, “denial” is such a harsh word.
I like to think of it as taking advantage of natural hardware. I’m a person who’s always on the cusp of being chronically late. If I’m goofy enough in the morning to forget about changing my clock, then that’s a few extra minutes that I’m glad to have.
I’ve found that, if I set my clock ahead by a “round” number of minutes, I’m conscious of the time change and just procrastinate all my “free” time away. I always set it extra by a strange number–7 minutes, 9 minutes, 13 minutes. That way, I can outfox myself more easily.
Feel free to kvetch, though. My friends all hate my time-switching habits! Not only that, but I very rarely know the true time. (At one point, I had five clocks each read a different time. I had to rush over to my cellphone to confirm the true time.)
Nice post. Cheers.
I’ve had several friends who set their clocks and watches ahead, too. I’m a procrastinator myself, but I never set my clocks ahead. It drives me crazy. I use an atomic time synchronizer on my computer, and I set my watch to the national atomic clock broadcast from Colorado (this requires tweaking every couple of weeks because my watch is cheap). I like to know that whenever my watch beeps, it’s beeping along with thousands of other watches owned by obsessive people like me.
Adam,
Hehehe…I hear you on the atomic time thing. I do the same thing myself—all of the clocks in my home, as well as my vehicle clock, are set as closely to atomic time as is possible without their having their own uplink.
Tim
The whole idea is to trick your future self into believing something that’s not true, even though you know that you’ll be glad that you were conned later. This works best for bedroom alarm clocks, of course, because it’s easy to trick a half-asleep person.
I do a similar thing with money. When I take money from the ATM, I make sure that I stick an extra $20 or $40 in a secret pocket of my wallet. (My father taught me this.) It serves several purposes:
1) A “need money for shopping” spouse won’t leave you penniless.
2) If you get mugged, you can give the mugger all the money in your wallet, and , if he leaves the wallet, you still have money for a cab home.
3) You often trick yourself into thinking that you don’t have any money left, or, when you have to pay for something and realize that you’re out of money, you really do have some extra “cache”.
The point is that almost any self-deception is beneficial, and if you remember the deception, then there’s no harm at all.
Some of us do it (sometimes by several hours) to keep phased with daylight.
And a second joke: a broken watch is better than one running late or early. At least it gives the correct time twice a day.
Wow, 9 months later and another reply! =p
My boyfriend teases me about setting my watch fast as a “woman’s thing”. And in my family, most of the women set their watches at least 5 minutes ahead, myself included.
My Mom sets hers 15 minutes ahead, being well aware that it isn’t the right time, and giving lies out to all that ask for the correct time.
Her alarm clock? I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many minutes fast it is!
I seemed to have picked up the bad habits as a way to prevent myself from being late to work. My alarm is set somewhere between 5-10 minutes fast and my watch 5 minutes fast.
But what has my inaccurate time gotten me?
I arrive to work about the same time everyday.
Besides confusing my boyfriend and myself in the morning, the faster time hasn’t really helped anything.
A wall clock set 15 minutes fast could come into use if you have guests and want them to think it’s later so that they’ll go home sooner. =p
I do think I’m in time denial. Now let’s see if I can remember that my clock is now accurate and not fast.
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