It started with an email inviting me to a conference call for work.
The only problem was that the email said that the meeting was at 16:00 GMT+1.
So first I translate 16:00 to 4pm, and then I try to figure out where GMT+1 is, versus where I am.
I know that we're usually GMT-5, but we just changed our clocks for daylight savings time.
Does GMT+1 also change their clocks, keeping the time difference at 6 hours, or are we now 5 hours apart, or is it 7?
So I went on the web and found a site that would figure out what time it was in NY. But for that site, I had to indicate which time zone was using daylight savings time.
So I had to find a different site. No problem. Except the website said it was 13:00 and I knew that had to be wrong.
So I finally let my pride bite the dust and asked a co-worker. The answer was 10am.
Unfortunately, I had another conference call at 10, but that one is pretty quick, so I decided to dial-in to the short one first, and then join the international call.
However, the phone number started with the city code, and I realized that I needed to dial the country code first. I tried dialing 01 which didn't work (I think that's actually the US code) and I needed the other country code.
Then I realized that while I knew that the other country was in the GMT+1 time zone, I wasn't sure where I was calling. But some of the people are stationed in Zurich, so I figured Switzerland, but then I needed the Swiss country code, which I didn't know.
Would you believe that I actually started dialing random combinations of ones and zeros followed by the city code and the phone number, and the pin number, and I actually got through.
And then I ended up in the middle of the call, in the middle of the project, and didn't have any idea what they were talking about.
The good news[!] is that this is a weekly call, so I get to try again next Wednesday...
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