I thought this was an amusing portion of an article on our company's intranet. As you know everyone is hurting right now, but my company has figured out great ways to save money.

About half of the clocks in Corporate Center will be removed during the next several days before Daylights Saving Time takes effect to increase operational efficiencies. Because the clocks are battery powered, there’s quite a bit of labor involved in updating them each year for time changes and to replace batteries. Clocks will be left in the busiest core areas, but will be removed in smaller conference rooms, areas where there are multiple clocks, etc.

Just hope they don't save those clocks to give away as a 10 year gift package.

Following Chrysler's lead....

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE51Q54320090227

"In the meantime, Chrysler has also removed hundreds of clocks from the walls of its headquarters, telling workers to check the time on their watches, phones or computers.

By taking down the clocks last year, maintenance staff no longer have to reset them twice a year, when the time changes to daylight saving time and back.

William Wolf, Chrysler's facility operations director, said in a posting on the Chrysler blog that would save $10,000."

I stopped using wrist watches years ago, no need, every freaking electric appliance or gadget has one.

Ditto. In my immediate vicinity I can see 5 clocks, none of which are on the wall or require human labor to set.

I still wear a watch. Sure, clocks are everywhere. Not counting my watch, there are 4 clocks that I can see from where I'm sitting right now.

But I enjoy having an analog watch on my wrist. I just sort of prefer to observe and note the progression of time with analog hands, rather than a little digital display.

I also have a self-winding watch that I like to wear. Something about the symbiotic relationship of the watch ticking away, keeping time from energy generated by my movements makes me happy. I also have a deep appreciation of the engineering and mechanics that went into making a device that keeps time without any electronics.

I also have a strong desire to have a clock that is as *precisely* accurate as possible. A bizarre habit of my father that I inherited. With a watch, I can set it to be perfectly in sync with the atomic clock in Boulder, Co via shortwave radio. Sure, PC's can sync with time servers, and cell-phones get the time from the provider. But I like to do it myself, to know that it's accurate. OCD much?

I'm sentimental. And weird.

I don't know if I like all of this clockblocking.

Amen. I've always been able to read an analog readout faster than a digital.

Oddly, my brother just sent me this link today. 10 Most difficult to read Tokyoflash watches.

I'm also surprised that it seems no one under 18 can read an analog clock face.

Bren R.

Analog clocks are neither precise nor accurate.

With a max of 60 marks around their face, the most precision you can directly read is two decimal places. A digital watch with a seconds counter shows four places of precision. That's two orders of magnitude better.

As for accuracy, even the best mechanical clocks will lose or gain a couple seconds within a month. But all it takes is a cheap, quartz based digital to maintain that level of accuracy over the course of a year. Again, an order of magnitude better.

I wonder if 100 years from now people will still use the terms clockwise or anticlockwise or know where they cam from.

I'd actually only heard "counterclockwise," not "anticlockwise." You learn something new every day.

Charles, stop being so anti-intuitive.

I don't understand your math. Both a digital clock (HH:MM:SS) and an analog watch (so long as it has a second hand) have exactly the same precision. Both tell the time down to the second. In fact, I have a couple of analog watches where the second hand moves every half or quarter second. Those are actually more precise than a normal digital watch that just displays down to the whole second.


I won't argue that. Which is why that the *vast* majority of analog watches use quartz movements. As accurate as any digital watch. The one purely mechanical I own does lose about 1 second per week. So no, it isn't as accurate as a cheap quartz digital watch. But with that one, the joy of it is more about the craftsmanship of the movement than the raw accuracy of the timepiece.

To understand my math, you'll have to realize that I forgot about the second hand.

It was late.

Which kind of makes it the third hand, not the second hand.
And if time is linear, why are clocks round?
And if time slows down as you approach he speed of light, then if I use a big enough Monster Cable, could I make my music play backwards?

Clocks are round because time has no end.

they took down the clocks last night, so we created a paper copy of the original and put it up on the wall, it is 5pm Beer O'Clock already...

What an excellent idea. And it's still accurate, twice a day!

The company I'm currently working at stopped replenishing most of the office kitchen supplies with the exception of coffee, sugar and cream. No cups, towels and such. Thankfully they still replace the TP on the bathrooms :-O

I bet you they're not taking down the "Your mother doesn't work here" signs, either.

My dad's company just got rid of paid vacation. You want time off, go ahead, but no pay for you!

Ouch. That's a harsh one. So far my workplace hasn't made any noticeable steps toward saving money. The annual increase wasn't as large as previous years, but otherwise, there hasn't been anything, and we're still doing our expansions.

That's a new one on me. So for those with that particular company they now have to save at least 4% of every paycheck to get 2 weeks vacation a year, 6% for 3 weeks etc.

Our labour code in Canada states employers have to pay for 2 weeks vacation a year.

So unless you are self employed, ie. a consultant under contract or own your own company, you are set for at least 2 weeks. IIRC, after 5 yrs with the company you then get 3 weeks paid.

Wow, I took for granted that the US would have had similar legislation. Maybe we should add that to the "Why Canada is Great" thread.

Here’s how my company saves money.

We’ve had a fuel savings initiative for some time where we pull most things off the aircraft if they aren’t need for a specific mission so they aren’t carrying the extra weight and thus burning extra fuel (chubby pilots seem exempt) . Some of these things even include 3lb foam pads and much to the chagrin of the aircrews all the parachutes since It’s been deemed unlikely they would ever need to air egress on a local training mission.

So now that you are all thinking my company, your (Yankee) government, is looking out for how it spends your hard earned tax dollars, well here’s the rub.

While in Guam we fly 2 tankers to Hawaii to support a B2 bomber doing a 2 minute Pearl Harbor Day flyover (2 more nights in the Waikiki Outrigger for me…). That burns about 80k…wait 2 tankers that’s 160k…oops had to fly back 320k pounds (about 47,700 gallons) of fuel (…and did I mention the Outrigger is on Waikiki the beach…). We launch one aircraft to refuel the B2s while we stand by with the other sitting ‘hot alert” (engines running on the ground) until we get word the B2 got it’s gas (…and the rooms were paid for plus $120/day for meals, or beer at Dukes).

I roughly estimate the cost of this was only $150,000 for our mission, not sure what flying the B2 cost. Well, a small price for a little patriotism I say. The really neat part was that while we sat there with our tanker’s engines idling we were marveling at how cool the jet-black intake covers of the 8 Hawaii Air National Guard tankers sitting over on the next ramp looked, and wondering why they didn’t fly the mission since they were already there.

Just gives me a warm and fuzzy every time I throw that 3lb foam pad back up on the aircraft because they happen to need if for today.

Climbs off soapbox,
Dean

P.S. Yes I did ask. It was an active duty mission and since there were active duty aircraft (us) available they won’t ask for National Guard help. Never mind we were a guard unit only temporarily deployed on active duty.

P.P.S I’ve seen a lot of RCAF tankers around here lately…are you guys up to something?

I assume the RCAF tankers are filling up on cheaper US gas.

Good one!