Hacker News Reader

Comment by vladvasiliu | Hacker News Reader

It can be, but people have to be a bit flexible on both sides.

The most extreme example I have is myself, in France, having calls with people in New Zealand. That's an 11-hour difference. Basically, we'd have them at 8 AM CEST, which is 7 PM NZDT.

8 AM is somewhat early by Paris standards (usual office day begins at 9 - 9:30, with many people coming in around 10) but it's still feasible. I don't know how the day is organized in NZ, but I'd assume being done at 8 PM is a bit late but still tolerable.

View on HN

But New Zealand is not Asia, all of Asia is a lot closer time-zone wise than NZ to Europe. E.g. depending on the DST, 4pm in Japan (the furthest east) is 9am in Spain (2nd furthest west), two totally compatible times. The problem comes when you try to make THAT compatible with the California as well, which we determined it's just not possible in my last company.

> But New Zealand is not Asia, all of Asia is a lot closer time-zone wise than NZ to Europe

Exactly. So if it works for Europe with New Zealand, it should work at least as well with Asia.

You should be weary with Spain, though. Even though it's quite out West, they're still using Central European Time (same as Hungary / Poland in the East), which is completely absurd. Hell, even France shouldn't be using CET, but WET / GMT. Only Portugal uses WET, and you have to go East to Finland / the Baltics / Romania / Bulgaria / Greece to switch time zones again (EET / GMT + 2). [0] is a handy map of time zones in Europe.

> The problem comes when you try to make THAT compatible with the California as well, which we determined it's just not possible in my last company.

You mean a call involving the three at the same time? Yeah, I can't see how that could be reasonable for all parties involved.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Time_Zones_of_Europe.svg

Yes I'm quite weary of Spain, I lived there for 25 years! I am also wary of it since it's in the wrong timezone :)

Well, 10, 11, or 12 hour difference, depending on time of year. Having been on the other side of that (in NZ, dealing with UK people, so 11-13 hour difference), 8PM isn't really tolerable - that's two-three hours past normal finishing time, so you either nip out for dinner before the meeting, or you're eating super-late. Plus missing bedtime for kids, possibly having a longer commute home (public transport frequency falls off a cliff after peak hours), although maybe a much shorter commute if you drive.

It worked out for me because I worked 1PM to 11PM or so (my bosses weren't thrilled about it, but not a lot they could do), but I'd have been very unhappy if I was working a normal 8 - 5 or 9 - 6 day.

These days I live in Europe and won't work outside my standard hours, with very rare exceptions, backed up by some fairly strong laws (Germany, so not as strong as France, I think) and some interesting wording choices in my contract.

I've been on the other end of that (taking calls in NZ from Spain and the UK) and agree. From what I can tell, working hours culture is very much the same in New Zealand as it is in France. Those in Spain always seem to be working late to suit NZ schedules, but I don't know if that's a normal thing or just our company.

It's not normal to work past 8pm in Spain. However, I know several people happily attending international meetings from home between 8-11pm because 8pm is the standard go to bed time for the kids.

What are the common business hours in Spain? I was thinking everything happens later there, so a 10 PM dinner is not uncommon, because of the ridiculous time zone they use (Central European Time, when most of the country is West of GMT).

Traditionally 9:00 to 18:00 with 1h lunch or 9:00 to 19:00 with 2h for lunch (a bit more old fashioned) in my experience.

In some companies you might start later and finish later. Of course every company is different and some might insist on you being until very late there.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com