Steve Lelievre wrote: > > Ireland is on the same timezone at the UK, and so is Portugal. It seems to > me that Spain and France should be the same too, but for their close ties > with the rest of the European mainland. They are both mostly within 7.5° of > the Greenwich meridian. > > Anyway, timezones don't solve the whole problem. When I lived in England I > did a lot of business with Finland (+2 hours), and France and Germany (+1). > It was difficult to contact colleagues when we needed to. Yes, this was due > to different timezones, but also different office hours. England worked > 9-17.30 local with lunch from 12.30 - 13.30, Finland worked 7.30-16.00 local > with lunch from 11.30 to 12.30, France and Germany something else again. > Germany was extra complicated because the factory staff worked different > hours to the operations staff, so there were two sets of times to remember. > > I would happily put the whole of the EU on a single time zone, but only if > there are also common start, finish and break times! >
Still, it's more easy to find somebody in UK or Finland than in the US, from Europe, that is, don't you think? I remember when I was in a company here in Brussels, how difficult it was to call equipment providers in the US. Now, fortunately, we have asynchronous communications (e-mail, to be less pedantic): it's maybe not panacea, but it solves at least the TZ, working hours and breaks problems...
