I could not conceive a couple years ago what a big impact on my life time zones would have today. Not a day goes by now that time zones aren’t a consideration in planning my schedule.
Until diving deep into Nouns and other nft projects, I really didn’t have much interaction outside the US. My work has been pretty localized and rarely did I have to consider beyond the 3 hour west coast time difference.
But now, not a day goes by that don’t play my favorite game – What time is it in Australia? Or Brazil? Or London? This gets particularly fun when clocks change. In multiple countries. At different times of the year.
This has forced some realizations, including how US “self-centered” I’ve been. Not only around time zones but everything. By working with people all over the world, I’ve come to realize how provincial I am and had to expand beyond my beliefs that America is the center of the world. And also realizing where other cultures may be superior or have better approaches.
In order to have these interactions, we have to find times to chat and work together, which inevitably involves looking at my world clock to attempt to figure out when everyone might be awake. In a space that is 24/7 and never sleeps, it means that there will always be fomo for someone. And trying to accommodate all time zones is impossible.
I also had never heard of UTC until creating POAPs with secret word phrases using UTC as the time. Which means converting my time into UTC for whatever time I want to distribute the POAP. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve messed this up. No one said there would be this much math involved.
Interacting with a global brain trust has certainly been one of the biggest unexpected benefits from joining in a world wide industry with mostly remote workers – getting to work with some of the best and brightest all over the globe, not limited to a 20 mile radius near my home.
But it certainly also has its challenges. And coordinating synchronous meetings is certainly the biggest. But it’s so worth the effort because my life is enriched by the voices from all the other continents I don’t often get to explore. And now I have places I want to travel to that I never even considered before.
And in case you’re wondering, it’s 7:11 am in Australia.
and I wrote that yesterday but had a delay getting published. And when I wrote it, it was 7:11 am in Australia.
