timezones, fun for you and your pal

Texas is an hour behind us. California is three hours behind us. There are timezones. Which are different. Across the US.

I think people in California - heck, people everywhere - should just live on my time. I don't care if they have to get up and work in the dark and sleep in the day. There are eastcoasters who work nights, after all. None of them seem particularly scarred for life.

Of course I'm joking, but it sometimes seems like I have some sort of special problem with understanding what time it is in more than one place at a time. I'm working on a project with some people in California and others in Texas, and I keep having to reschedule meetings and work slightly odd days because of this - like, I'll think "10AM is a perfectly reasonable meeting time" and then remember it's actually 7AM for someone. And this morning I tried to schedule a meeting at 8AM my time thinking that was 9AM Texas time. It's not. It's 7, too. No reasonable person works at 7, and if they do, it's to catch up on the work they missed while going to all those meetings.

But it's not just me.

There are tons of business-related books, classes, and such on just this topic - one of the most awkward things about teams at multiple locations is this logistical stuff; the what time is its and how is the weathers of life. Clearly knowing what time it is everywhere else is the future. [Hmm, that sounds funny.]

one small step for self-righteous folk everywhere

I just signed up for my company's discounted stock purchase plan, then rearranged all my 401(k) contributions because some of my money was invested in Wal-Mart and some was invested too conservatively.

Ironically, I moved my money from Wal-Mart to a combination of small companies, risky companies and overseas investments that probably include sweatshops. There aren't really options for what I'd call "socially responsible" investments. I'd like to, say, invest in businesses owned by round women in their twenties and thirties. But at least it's not being sent to megacorporations that make me feel all ew.

It's the little things.

Not to say that I'm inherently against corporations, even Wal-Mart. I work for one. Nor am I, for that matter, opposed to sweatshops in the here and now. That is - in the longer term, we need a global living wage that means people who make cheap plastic toys can afford to buy them and that the gap is narrowed between the wealthiest and poorest countries, but in the shorter term, my 401(k) is helping a twelve year old support a family of five, and given the other option is frequently near-starvation for them, I'd rather they have the sweatshop-working option than not. Something shitty over something shittier, I guess.

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is something I'm more ambivalent about. If the Wal-Marts of the world could exist without crushing local businesses and stepping on their workers, I might be alright with them. They just can't.