Space and Time

One of the challenges of working here is communicating with family, friends and colleagues back home and in others locations. This is something that I have not previously experienced.

I never had much use for Google+ until I arrived here. I saw it a just another form of social media - which is something in which I have not actively participated. It's a generational thing, perhaps. But now I rely on it for one specific feature: video conferencing with my family in California.

Before I arrived, I became accustomed to the thought that Doha is ten hours ahead of California. Ahead meaning earlier. I devised a simple method for conversion which I call Plus Two. Pacific time is Doha time + 2, except of course that AM is PM and vice-versa.

Reversing that conversion is still a bit baffling. In Western culture we tend to create depictions of time from left to right. Perhaps that's because our language is written that way. Just think about the charts and graphs we create. But the world spins in the opposite direction. We move through space (not time) from East to West.

I created this illustration (using Microsoft Excel) to help with that visualization. It depicts the "working hours" in four different time zones. I video-chat with my wife every morning at seven o'clock. That's on the right side of the graphic. My colleagues in London start two hours later. There is a 2 hour overlap in my work day with U.S. Eastern time. My wife is at her job when my day is done. When she finishes her work, it's 3 a.m. here.

Here are some interesting notes on the direction of language scripting and numbering.