I have to admit, it’s not something I’ve ever truly thought about. I mean, I know it existed, because we have family in different time zones than us, but it didn’t truly change the way I thought about it because I was used to working in my time zone. And, to be completely honest, the rest of my world seemed to swivel around my time zone. That habit was hard to break when we went to Hawaii when we had to deal with a five-hour time difference between us and everything back home, something that was obvious when we tried to have conversations with people.
You see, every night after dinner, which happened at six o’clock in the evening, I would call my dad and chat for a while. However, 6:30 in Hawaii is 10:30 where my dad lives, and well, he’s been in bed for three hours already. Furthermore, sharing stuff with our friends back home meant they wouldn’t see it until the morning most often. When we said good morning, they were having lunch. When we shared a picture of our nighttime cocktails, they were snuggled deeply in their beds. There was only a brief period where we could talk and get instant replies, but we were usually neck-deep in some new adventure by then. It grew tiresome trying to keep up.
Oh, I knew the times of certain things, but those were only because I had been burned by them at one time or another until it was burned into my mind. Take Amazon for instance. When they say to upload your pre-order by midnight, three days ahead of your release date, that doesn’t mean midnight, because they’re midnight isn’t mine. It meant I needed to have the manuscript uploaded by seven the night before. Also, my favorite game Disney Emoji Blitz has two different time zones, it seems, which is confusing as hell. My new events don’t start until midnight, as I would expect, but the leadership board resets at seven or eight, depending on daylight savings time. It’s confusing as hell.
Not only that, but it affected my work schedule. We had to take a business call early in the day so they would make it before the end of their work day. Also, scheduling posts become cumbersome as I would forget to add the necessary time difference. It even added to the reason I had to push Her Valentine Billionaire back ten days. I simply couldn’t figure out the timing of it all and decided to simply wait until I was back in Florida where I knew the times of everything.
So, since this trip, I’ve added a To Do to my list with each item, and that’s to consider when it will release in different areas, so hopefully, I can structure things to fit better for different readers. Will have to wait and see how I do.
In the meantime, I’m still in Hawaii and while some of you are settling down for dinner, it’s happy hour here at the local bar and time for my afternoon Mai Tai.
Cheers!
Robbie