This is too lame and petty for The Pit, so I am putting it here.
I got an email at work yesterday that said, “The meeting will start at 1500.”
Why do some people do this? All of my clocks - the clock on my phone, the clock on my computer, the clock in my car, the clocks at home - use AM/PM. When someone gives me a time like “1300,” “1700,” etc. I have to mentally convert it to AM/PM. And then I have to do it two or three times to make sure I did it correctly.
Unless you’re in the military, don’t do this! You’re driving people bonkers.
I agree. Like the meeting was going to start at 3:00 AM?
Although in my previous place of employment, a nuclear facility, things always needed to be crystal clear. Times were specified on the 24 hour clock, because the ramifications of any ambiguity could be substantial.
First, I worked in the healthcare industry for a decade and a half and it just comes natural to me. You’ll find there are a lot of professions that use 24 hour time as their standard, not just the military.
Second, aftet I switched careers, I got really tired of saying something like “we’ll have the inservice at 5 o’clock next Wednesday” and someone would pipe up “is that AM or PM?” This is a room full of people with graduate degrees and we work in education… and they were asking this question seriously. I’d rather have folks like you grumble a bit than have to explain for the zillionth time that no, we aren’t meeting at 5 am. We’re all teachers, most of us math teachers. They can live with the slight annoyance.
Military, also bilingual. It’s more accurate, and easily understood. If you find it challenging, just adjust your computer and phone to display 24 hour time.
I work in IT. Sure, it’s unlikely that a meeting would start at 3 AM, but it’s entirely possible that the work I’m going to do on your database server will start at 3 AM. Using 24-hour time leaves no ambiguity.
Also, it eliminates possible confusion. Someone in a hurry *might *mistake 3:00 AM and 3:00 PM if they’re not paying close attention, but nobody is going to be confused between 03:00 and 15:00.
I’m used to this, because of the European and military clients I work with. But I ALWAYS refer to times as “1:30A” or “4:30P” for just this reason. It’s never really been a problem.
The 24 hour clock is often used in the province of Quebec, in written form (eg business hours in ads or on restaurant doors etc). So it’s not specifically military.
I work in finance and have spent time at work during every single hour of the day. I want no confusion over what time I’m referring to as well as the time zone.
This week, for example, is an odd one since European summer time ends tomorrow, but the USA daylight savings time doesn’t end until the following Sunday.
About half the clocks in my house are on 24hr time, the rest are not. Honestly, it doesn’t take long to get used to, they both just register as the same to me.
My parents are fond of telling me about the time they went back country camping in the Shetland Isles at midsummer, when it was pretty much 24 hours of daylight. They missed the ferry back by 12 hours, because they thought it was 6pm from Mum’s watch, but it was actually 6am the following morning.
They thought the town was remarkably quiet on the drive in
It’s standard at my job where we run 24-7, all log entries and such reference it. I don’t use it in any other context, but I have long since gotten used to it and don’t find it any bother.
I grew up in a military family. My Daddy used it all the time. I was dyslexic so a dial on a clock face are hard for me to read, when my Daddy explained 24 hour time to me I was able to understand it better. But I remember everyone else used to harp on him about it. My son who is recently out if the Corps uses it. But I think he does it to aggravate people. He is nutty!
I like the 24hr clock myself. Very clear and simple. But then I was Navy and currently a mid-range computer Programmer so I learned 24 hr as a young adult and lived it and then continue to use it regularly most of my adult life.
It is very simple once you’re use to it. Probably better to adapt than fight it.
Outside of the USA, the 24 hour clock is so common that nobody thinks about it. It is perfectly clear and eliminates confusion.
As for the example upthread which tried to ridicule the need for 24 hr time,saying “sure, did you really think that the meeting would start at 3:00 am?”
Well here’s the answer:
Sure, 3:00 is pretty obvious . But 6:30 is not so clear cut.
In many work places, a special meeting could be called just outside of regular hours, so as not to interfere with the regular workday. And the meeting could easily and logically be set for either 6:30 am or 6:30 pm.(In either case, the employees are not going to be happy ).
But saying 18:30 eliminates all doubt.
Now here’s my question:
For those of us who do use the 24 hour clock …do you do so in speech, or only in writing?
For me, the 24 system is common in writing, but never used in casual conversation, say for setting a meeting at work.
A store will post its closing time on the door as 21:00, but if you call them on the phone, they will say “We"re open till 9”
(Other than the military, who do use the 24hr system in both in speech and writing, but I assume that’s true of every army .)
I use the 24 hr clock for personal timekeeping, but not in emails with American colleagues (which is the vast majority of my emails.) While I did grow up with a father who served in the military and taught me about “military time,” it wasn’t until living abroad for a number of years that I got used to and preferred it, so every device that I own that has the option of a 24-hour clock, I use the 24-hour clock.
In terms of advantages? I mean, 99% of the time, context tells you AM or PM, but there have actually been several times where I’ve fallen asleep on the couch dead tired for an afternoon nap, and woke up at 6 or 7, momentarily confused as to whether I’ve actually slept through the night or not. (In the fall and winter here, those times can look very similar in terms of outdoor light, or lack thereof.) I shit you not. This has happened to me a few times, both before and after adopting a 24-hour clock in the house. The latter helps me avoid that confusion.
Anyone who’s ever had a newborn has awakened to a clock reading 7:30 and not been sure which 7:30 it is.
Anyway, my husband and I have both been in the military, and we use 24hr time at home. My son grew up with it, and found it annoying in the first grade to have to learn to read a clock with a face. I told him it would help him conceptualize time (not the word I actually used with a first grader, but I don’t remember what word I used), and eventually he agreed.
The one time in our lives I failed to use military time, I left a photocopied itinerary that gave a flight return as 7:18pm. My husband failed to notice that it said pm, and showed up at the airport in the morning.
I don’t use military time with coworkers, though. I know they’d never get it.
I’m in the US and not military, and I prefer 24-hour time for its clarity. (I am a software engineer, though, which may be a factor.) However, almost everyone I interact with prefers AM/PM, so I use what they’re comfortable with.
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