Clock Skew

Do you ever wish the day was a couple of hours longer? I’m pretty sure my natural tendency (if I was stuck in a cave with no natural light cues or TV channels to let me know what time it is) would be to live with about a 26 hour day. Unless I have things to do that kick me back into step with the rest of the world I tend to drift by getting up a little later each morning and going to bed a little later each night.

Given long enough, actually, this becomes getting up a little later each afternoon and going to bed a little later each morning. A few years ago during one of those magnificently long college summers we used to take for granted, I managed to lose an entire day from this drift. This exchange never happened, but it could have:

“You’re up early today.”

“No, I’m just up really late yesterday.”

This tendency is still with me, and in a job with as much flexibility as mine it can be tough to keep in check. Yesterday I worked a full working day, but one which started at nearly noon and went on into the less sociable hours of the evening. Well that’s fine; things still get done. If I get in late, I stay in late, and there’s no difference in the end.

Or so you might think. The problem comes on a Friday when this flexible window in which I work pushes up against something less flexible, like a leaving party for a colleague. Then you get days that run according to the compressed schedule of arrive, lunch, email, party, home.

After a day like that I usually have to make some effort over the weekend to resynch myself with the wider idea of what constitutes a working day.

On the plus side: party!