If people who want DST can just switch operating hours during summer instead of imposing DST on everyone else, then people who want year-round winter time can just switch operating hours during summer instead of imposing year-round winter time on everyone else.

It's a bogus argument either way.

Now I am in the blessed position of working from home again, I can choose when I get up. What I choose is this:

- for 26 weeks of the year (broadly from spring equinox to autumn equinox) I get up at 7am (which would be 6am in the absence of DST)

- for 6 weeks of the year (broadly centred on the winter solstice) I get up at 7:45am

- it takes 10 weeks for me to switch from getting up at 7am to getting up at 7:45am: I get up 2 minutes later every day for 5 weeks, and 1 minute later every day for another 5 weeks (and the clocks go back during this)

- it takes me 10 weeks to switch the other way: I get up 1 minute early every day for 5 weeks, then 2 minutes earlier every day for another 5 weeks

I do this to maximise the amount of daylight I get during the winter, without having to get up in the dark.

The point of me telling you all this is: the hard part is not getting up at a different time every day for 10 weeks. The hard part is synchronising with people who are essentially living in a different time zone.

This is why I don't do this when I work in an office, even just one day a week: I can change when I get up by a minute or two every day, but the trains won't change when they run by the same amount. That 9am meeting I need to be in the office for is still going to be at 9am, and the guy who controls when it starts won't agree to move it.

When I work in an office, I can't choose my timezone. Neither can you. Neither can anyone else.

(The dates I target aren't really the equinoxes/solstices. What I actually care about is the latest sunrise, which is a week and a half after the winter solstice, and shift everything accordingly.)