What is your relationship with Time?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The thing. Not the newsmagazine. :smile:

Some context: I just picked up a 1931 Bulova wristwatch. I happen to love Art Deco and have 4 or 5 watches from the early to mid 1930s. Either Bulovas or Gruens. With the help of my local ace watch repairman, they all keep fairly good time. Obviously given the vintage this and other Art Deco watches I will reference here are hand-wound items.

The watch I now have on my wrist again had been exposed to some magnetic fields. That was a real deal-killer for watches of this era. My guy made it right again.

In conversing with him, he shared how irritable/ jerkish some customers are when their watch doesn’t keep absolute time. Absolute as defined by matching it to their cell phone, which catches and updates the time from the towers, which by way of some fiber-optic handshaking get their time from the Naval Observatory Clock.

He opined that even if the owner of a more recent and pricey timepiece got to keep time within 3 minutes a week, some owners were irked by this. Even higher-end timepieces such as a solid Omega or Rolex will drift slightly. Perhaps a few minutes a year. Yes, you have crystals controlling the movement. But those movements are still mechanical and, well, any mechanical item has some tolerances it operates within.

We started talking about Time itself. How certain folk, certain personalities and ways of relating to their world, will be more compulsive about both their time management AND the hyper-accuracy of their timepieces.

I work in television. When making a live television event, everyone listening is aware when we are approaching The Moment/ Top Of The Hour, etc. Show rundowns are written out so that the realtime count at the far right column shows a fade-out at, say, 15:59:59:15. That last 15 is frames. 30 frames of video per second. It’s rare, but one will see a count that includes a 15-frame fade to zero before the network, or whoever, takes over.

These things are exacting because they kind of have to be. It’s 2025- nothing in my entire existence besides the start and stop times of television events has anything to do with deeply accurate time.

I live in NYC. The subways? Minutes of variance is the norm. Air travel? Please. Transit time including walking? Always inexact and buffer time is built in.

What else is there? If meeting someone in a public space at an agreed time, the best you can hope for is within a few minutes of the agreed-upon time. Heck- a lot of the time, one picks “Meet me under the big clock!” as a location. In NYC it could be the clock in the middle of the Great Room in Grand Central Terminal. And so on.

My relationship with time hasn’t ever been overly frantic. Big live events? Hmmmm. Surgery? Be there wicked early. It will take ROUGHLY 45-75 minutes. Give or take. Getting married? Sure we tried to start walking down the aisle at, say, 1pm exactly. If we held up a bit, so what?

In reading this so far, I am making myself sound more zen than I am. I’m the one frantic to get to the airport 2-3 hours early just in case. For a work call, 30 minutes early is on time and 15 minutes early is pushing it. Arriving at call time is late.

It’s a fundamental thing I try to work on. These wind-ups ( as much works of art as works of time tracking ) keep me on schedule. Do I peek at my cell phone during the day? Yeah. But I try not to very much.

I do own a few modern pieces. A Vaer, a couple of Timexs. They work just fine and really don’t drift, at least not to my eye. But they’re ugly as hell.

What’s your relationship with both time and the timepieces you employ in your daily life?

2

Timepieces, nothing. My computer screen or my phone are my timepieces.

Time itself…? My alarm goes off at 6am (cell phone alarm). My snooze interval is set to ten minutes. I will hit snooze once. At 6:10 I shut off my alarm and get ready for work, let the dog out at 6:25 or so, out the door at 6:30-ish. Get to my office at 7… ish. Leave at 3… ish.

So my relationship with time is best described by those three letters; “ish”.

For appointments and such, I do tend to arrive early, so that I’m ready when the appointment is, whether that’s earlier or later than scheduled. I don’t tend to be upset by things running late. Things happen when they happen.

3

This is the same for me. I wake up at 5 am every morning, and since I’m retired, I don’t pay much attention to time during the day. I eat when I’m hungry, not at any particular time. If I have an appointment or need to be somewhere at a specific time, I try to arrive at least 10 minutes early, since delays beyond my control can happen. Otherwise, unless I have to be somewhere at a particular time and it would be a big deal if I was late, I don’t stress over it.

4

I have ADHD and the ever-present feeling that time is escaping me, and I’m not wrong. I easily lose track of time, especially when I’m concentrating deeply. Not a minute here or there, but hours.

I have a smart watch to remind me to do things. Most of the time I am on time to things, often I’m early. It’s just how I’ve learned to compensate. Things that don’t have a fixed time are the most dangerous ones. My brain doesn’t register them the same way. My son’s school starts at 8:55am. I haven’t been late once.

But take something more nebulous, like his after school care: I have to be there at some point before 6pm. Now we’re in trouble, because at 5:00pm I say, well, I don’t have to leave now per se, at 5:30pm I say, “Just one more minute,” and then I forget until I realize five minutes have passed and I barely make it.

Of course, I regularly encounter people with ADHD who often don’t show up for things at all, so I’m pretty lucky to remember as much as I do.

But the time sink, yeah. Time is a big black hole to me. Sometimes things happen and I can’t even remember what I did.

5

Constant panicking about it slipping away. I have a 4000-weeks calendar (they cost about $80) customized with my specific age on it so that each time a week passes, I mark one off. I’m near halfway through.

6

Nothing very interesting. Like other folks, if I have anything scheduled, I generally arrive early because I left time for unexpected events, like a traffic tie-up. I am almost never late. Sometimes I am so early that I stop somewhere short and sit and wait until I am not embarrassingly early.

Regarding timepieces: I have two electric digital clocks at home, one is my alarm clock, one is at my desk. These plug into an outlet, so I thought that, once set, their displayed time would proceed steadily at the same pace as reality, but such is not the case, they lose a minute every month or so. I suppose to myself that it has something to do with variations in the electricity rate, and I don’t stress about it, I just re-set them from time to time (when they get more than 2 minutes off).

In my life, since I retired time has seemed to drift. I have very few things imposed on me that I have to do at a specific time. I don’t really have long-term goals to meet, either. I still have my alarm set for 7am because I don’t like that much drift, to lose maybe hours every day indulging in extra sleep. And also because a fairly regular schedule helps me to sleep at night. I have things I want to do, but if I don’t do them today, there’s always tomorrow (until there isn’t, of course, but I don’t seem to worry about that much either).

7

I like to always know roughly what time it is – within 5-10 min – or be able to immediately find out. The time itself doesn’t matter as much as my awareness of it. I’ll feel vaguely uncomfortable if I find myself wondering what time it is and I have no way to quickly check. I have clocks in every room of my house (even though these days I also usually have a cell phone and/or tablet in front of me), and I’ve worn a watch every day for as long as I can remember. There’s a picture of me at my 8th grade graduation – in 1985 – wearing a long fancy dress and a watch. :slight_smile: And I’m analog: it actually takes me a second or two to “translate” digital readouts. I wind up picturing a clock face. All of that said, though, I am able to enjoy a movie, hang out with friends, etc., without compulsively checking the time.

Even though awareness of the time of day is kind of important to me, the method by which I get that info is much less so. :slight_smile: I used to be all Timex, but I currently own four watches: two “everyday” Citizen Eco-Drive watches, a Seiko metronome watch that I bought mostly for the novelty value, and – just delivered this week and still in its box – a Timex NY Yankees watch. Sometimes I daydream about having the disposable income for a Rolex, just because I think they’re pretty and I’m upper-middle-class enough to like the idea of having one.

In terms of personal punctuality, I join those who are hardly ever late. I don’t mind if a friend is running a bit late, but after 15 minutes I’d appreciate a text or something.

8

I opine that a watch that doesn’t keep time within 3 minutes a year is obsolete garbage. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something that lost 3 minutes a week. I wear a watch to tell time, not to have a box of gears on my wrist, so I would go with a far superior $15 digital watch.

9

I have a Timex with the “Indiglow” backlight. It’s cheap and it lives next to the bed. I never wear it. I quit wearing a watch years ago and just rely on my phone, if needed, when I’m out of the house. Since retirement, time has become fairly irrelevant for me unless we have an appointment somewhere. There are daily things like when the news is on, but basically it’s a form of freedom not to have to be a slave to time.

10

She walks with a bell clock ‘round her neck
So the hippies think she’s in with time (time!)
—Jimi Hendrix Experience, “She’s So Fine”

Whatever “in with time” means, it’s a reference to having a relationship with it.

11

I’ve been loved and put aside (Time)
I’ve been crushed by a tumbling tide (Time)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (Time)

12

I don’t like to be late. I don’t like others to be late. I don’t obsess over accurate timekeeping. I am bad at scheduling. I like regular routines. I don’t wear a watch, but I do have several clocks, more for multiple opportunities for quick glances than any kind of need.

13

So powerful, thank you for this.

Not sure how familiar I was with this track until I went to see “Coming Home” in the theater when it was released. I seem to recall that it played over the last sequence, which- well- I can’t spoil the end.

I walked out of the theater sobbing.

14

It’s 2025. How did that happen?

15

I used to be obsessive about setting all household clocks to the exact time. Since I retired, I don’t care. Close enough will do.

However, I can’t stand being late for anything. 15 minutes early is On Time and on time is late. My wife doesn’t care about this, and it drives me crazy.

I wear a Timex wristwatch that I’ve had for at least 30 years. It has Roman Numerals (a quirk I love) and mechanically changes the day and the date. I’ve never replaced it because I like it and have never found one comparable at a price I’m willing to pay. I’ve only replaced the battery and the leather band when they wear out.

And like John Cameron Swayze said years ago, a Timex watch “takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” I know this for a fact. Not long ago I lost my balance and fell squarely on my left wrist, where the watch resides. I only fractured my wrist, but I think the watch prevented a more serious result. And it kept right on ticking.

And I’m one of the few who still has a clock radio. It’s probably 25 years old has been set to the same Classical music station all that time. Wakes me every morning at 7 to feed the cats and make coffee.

16

I can’t keep it.

17

I can’t tell it.

18

Don’t own a watch, at the moment. I’m frequently late by a few minutes, while acknowledging that it’s a character defect. I’m an Eiseteinist in the sense that I distain absolute time, it’s relative to the observer. For example, at work I may record the steps in a procedural sedation/synchronized cardioversion diligently based on a wall clock, but when I enter them into the electronic chart, which is on internet time, I make no attempt to reconcile any differences between the timepieces.

19

Ehh, my relationship with time is breezy and casual. Doubly so if I’m making an appointment I’m paying for. If I’m being paid for the appointment, I’ll probably be on time.

One thing that chaps my ass are places that note “Please arrive 15 minutes before your appointment.” No, I probably won’t. If you wanted me to show up 15 minutes earlier than the appointed time, schedule it for 15 minutes earlier and don’t depend on me reading the fine print.

20

I just use my phone as a time piece.

But I retired a week ago, so time is different. I still get up freakishly early, like 3am, but I don’t have to rush to do things. And it no longer matters what day of the week it is. It’s kinda strange. Gonna take a while to get used to it.