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Much like the shifting of tectonic plates that cause earthquakes, the bi-annual shifting of timezones not in unison causes rumblings in schedules and disturbances of varying severity. This shifting of timetonic plates can be really problematic for businesses coordinating meetings, establishing seamless logistics, and syncing interaction schedules across continents and regions.

Unlike earthquakes form the shifting of tectonic plates, the timetonic plateshifts are all man made disruptions. There are many valid reasons of shifting from standard time to daylight savings (or in some regions, just daylight) time and shifting back. Part of the rationale is safety for children going to and coming home from school. But, the recent shift that was made to get more day light evening hours in the United States was driven by the outdoor entertainment industry (read BBQ makers and similar) has made the prior no difference or a week or two difference from the usual timezone differences we normally work around. Now we have nearly a month of being off kilter in the spring and two or three weeks in the fall.

One day people may realize if we are going to make shifts we should all do them in sync. Nobody is that special that they can create an hour more of daylight (as one bleary brained U.S. Congressman claimed in the need for the shift a few years back). The damage this does to commerce and extra effort this always takes when systems are out of sync in our heavily interconnected world may not be worth the cost of trying to be special.