24 hour clock usage

[hanette]

AIBU to be hugely irritated by unnecessary usage of the 24 clock?

My boss emails to tell me he'll see me at 13:00. There is no possibility of confusion, there is no way he is suggesting he pops over for some early morning action. So why not 1pm?

I can understand 24 clock usage in airports etc but not in everyday life.

Or AIBU?

yes yabu. it doesn't really matter does it?>

It doesn't really matter, does it? Surely it's just down to personal preference?

It annoys me too but mainly because my ds is confused by two different types of clock.

I must admit to using it in the office because its the way our work calendars are programmed. Remember learning it at primary school in the 70s and being told "people on the continent use it"

24 hour clock standard usage in our household. In international communities it is useful as it avoids misunderstandings as local ways of telling the time may be different. It also means that there is no misinterpretation of am or pm.

YABU - I personally can't understand why you wouldn't use 24 hour clock.

I use 24hr clock at work all the time so is standard for me to email/ converse/ whatever to colleagues in the 24hr clock.

I find I have to temper this when talking/ emailing/ texting to friends/ in-laws/ kids who use the 'normal' clock.

So YABU in expecting your boss to not use it if this is the way he works, but YANBU if the 24hr clock is unfamiliar to you.

Sorry not much help am I

I'm with the OP. Makes me think you're in the TA.

I suspect I ABU then!

I am familiar with the 24h clock....i just think it's naff

I'm with the OP - I grew up learning both - understand both, but got the 24hr clock pissed me off.

Or maybe it's just because I was about 25 before I stopped having to mentally work out what time 22.30 actually was in real terms

Dh military - hence the usage in our household.

I instinctively use it, grew up with a mariner for a father so the 24 hour clock goes hand in hand with always giving our postcode, spelling name etc in phonetic alphabet. I am now married to a yachtsman who moonlights as an aeronautical engineer so the habit continues.

Ooh, I am a 24hr clock pedant, sorry! My working life has been in the Police & the railway so everything is phonetics & 24hr clock. I know phonetics jokes. I am a sad act!

Phonetics jokes?!
Gwan, spill!

Its not like he's using Zulu time or anything, get a bloody grip!

YABU, we use the 24 hour clock due to some massive mix ups. We are on the continent and have found both Swiss and now Belgian people say 2.30 and mean 3.30 or vice versa. If you just say 14.30 there is no confusion.

of course YABU. We don't use it so much at home but it's essential in the office to avoid confusion (in my office anyway)

really Jareth - do you often have meetings at 3am in the morning then

Yabu.

I use 24hr clock all the time I always get irritated when people write 3.30pm instead of 1530 or even worse when my colleagues write 0330pm

It's hardly difficult is It !

Be glad you don't have my job and spend half the year having to translate between BST/DST and GMT/UTC times - and very few of the clocks are labelled, so one just has to remember which shows which.

Doesn't german say something like "half five" to mean "half an hour TO five" where we mean "half an hour PAST five"?

MaMoTTaT: some of my work DOES involve doing tasks at 3am, and my basic working hours are 9am to 5pm. A lot of my colleagues work night shifts, including briefings and similar meetings. Why is it so very strange to have 3am meetings? I can think of a number of occupations which could easily involve having to distinguish am and pm clearly for meetings and tasks.... medicine, emergency services, forces, power distribution, telecomms, transportation...

YABabitU I reckon. 24hr clock is less confusing if you do any work with people outside of the UK, as it is less likely to be misunderstood and also easier to calculate timezone differences, especially if you're trying to co-ordinate telecons with people all over the world, some of whom will be dialling on the day before or after the rest of the attendees.

Also, whilst I don't have UK meetings at 3am, I have had work arrangements for UK work starting at 4am, am possible not finishing until 11pm, so there are 7 hours where it could be a bit ambiguous.

I would only write it though, I don't tell my husband that dinner will be ready at nineteen hundred hours.

I also use it in spoken German, but loads of people do.

D

MaMoTTaT - not 3am no, but meetings can me between 06:00 and 22:00 (teleconferences with Australia for example) and in all different time zones, so 24 hour clock essential for me.

Recently had a balls up with an airport transfer because the daft airline didn't put the arrival time in 24 hour clock, so I assumed that 07:00 arrival was 7am when it was actually 7pm. 2

aendr I feel your pain. I have to have different time zones set up on my outlook, or I'd constantly be working out time differences :)

random #2 there, not sure what that was!

HRH totally agree :)