[mabbo]

Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell.

The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier.

This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If there's no DST, the sun will set "earlier" according to the clock, and you can't get in a full 18 holes.

So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing.

No other group of people sees any benefits to DST.

[gruez]

>So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing.

>No other group of people sees any benefits to DST.

Ah yes, because only powerful rich people would benefit from extra time in the evening to do outdoor activities.

[mabbo]

I didn't say it was right, just that I love it.

But truthfully, if our society wants more time in daylight after work... let's just leave work earlier. I mean, we are doing that, we're just changing the clocks and pretending we aren't. It's dumb.

[davidgh]

Since 2018, 13 states in the US passed resolutions to get rid of the semi-annual clock changes but also that daylight saving time become permanent. Of course, federal law doesn’t allow them to do such (a state only has the option to not observe DST, but not the option to permanently observe it).

It probably depends somewhat on latitude and longitude, I for one would prefer year round daylight saving time as I like the extra evening light in the summer and it’s dark when my kids leave for school in the winter anyway. I don’t golf.

The idea of shifting working hours to account for the season changes might work in some contexts but not others. Sure, if I’m an office “information worker” it’s probably not a big deal to shift to 7-4 in the summer. But I don’t think that’s going to work for retail, grocery, post office, restaurants, gyms, pharmacies, etc. where the public isn’t going want to constantly adjust to and guess at changing opening and closing times.

[mabbo]

But the public does adjust to changing opening and closing times.

We just all change the clocks as well and pretend that we didn't. And it's stupid.

[davidgh]

The previous discussion was talking about adjusting work hours as an alternative to daylight saving time. My comment is that’s not viable a alternative as I don’t think people want to try to determine if the post office closes at 4:00 or 5:00 depending on the date. Additionally, if everyone shifts working hours based on the time of year, how is that different than just changing the clock?

My point is not for or against daylight saving time, just that shifting work hours is not a viable alternative to it. And if we do get rid of changing clocks, there’s a decent chunk of the population that has expressed a preference for permanent daylight saving time rather than standard time.

It’s worth nothing that in Russia they experimented with permanent daylight time some years ago, and at first it was highly supported. However, after some years support for it dropped and they moved to permanent standard time. However, Russia deals with some unique geographical scenarios such as cities with extreme northern latitudes.

[creeble]

I don't know what you mean by "pretend we didn't". We don't pretend anything - we change the clocks and observe that change.

[jobigoud]

> a state only has the option to not observe DST, but not the option to permanently observe it

Do state have the option to change their timezone altogether?

Permanent DST is the same as shifting one tz over and not having DST and this would make more sense.

[Lvl999Noob]

Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours? Just shift the working hours by a few hours when the seasons change. It also gives more granularity for the changes. If 1 week in the whole season is particularly cold, then change the time again for that 1 week.

[majewsky]

That sounds like a huge coordination problem. Those problems are usually solved by some central entity enacting a standard, i.e. government enacting DST.

[Macha]

I assumed this was the norm in places that don't observe DST? Your workday is 9-5, year round, no we're not considering the time the sun sets

[CydeWeys]

> Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours?

Huh? I'll flip the question around on you: What places are there that don't observe DST that do change working hours seasonally, especially in a coordinated way? I haven't heard of any.

[TheRealSteel]

The liquor store I worked in in Australia had longer hours in summer than winter.

[CydeWeys]

Pools and parks have longer opening hours in summer than winter too. That's not really the same thing as DST though; it's orthogonal.

[happyopossum]

> Are there really places that don't observe DST and also don't change their working hours?

Yes, literally every state/province in North America that doesn't observe DST. I don't know what goes on in Europe, but nobody in Arizona for example changes the open/close time of their barbershop, restaurant, or gas station solely due to the time the sun rises...

[bombcar]

Even with DST here we still have "winter hours" for many businesses where it doesn't make sense to be open late (10 PM in summer is still light out, 10 PM in winter, sun set 5-6 hours ago).

[dmurray]

The golf courses are closed when it's too dark, but the offices aren't. You need to close the office a few hours before the golf course, even if your office business isn't strongly dependent on the amount of daylight.

[nerdponx]

Arizona

[SamBam]

Do Arizona banks and post offices and stuff really change their hours in different seasons?

[rwbcxrz]

Nope. There really isn't much reason to. The winters are mild, and Arizona is far enough south that there's still a good amount of daylight in the afternoons, at least compared to the northern parts of the US.

[ghaff]

I suspect that at least some of disconnect over DST is between people living at 40-50 degrees latitude who have short winter days and those living further south.

[GoblinSlayer]

Normally they match winter sunrise and keep it fixed all year long.

[BenjiWiebe]

I like DST and I'm neither rich nor a politician. I could be wrong, but I think farmers in general would be pro DST.

[mabbo]

Farmers are the most hurt by it.

Farmers need to work on daylight. They can't change their schedule when the clocks change. So during half the year, the busy half, all the business start closing down an hour early.