Time zone differences

From Arnhem, I'm 7 hours ahead of the Corporate center in Minneapolis: They start up by 8, which is late afternoon, my time. I've learned that if I don't cut it off by 5 or 6, then it's easy to stay until 10 pm, getting dragged along with their morning meetings and e-mails.

More difficult is keeping in touch with people in Seattle, 9 hours later than I am. My early morning is late evening for them, and evening calls for me are early mornings for the West Coast. It makes the calls a bit stressful, because neither of us are at our best at those hours. I think we've all just learned to to tackle difficult subjects without warning.

I leave a phone on all night by the bed in case there is an earthquake or some other emergency: it's seldom rung, fortunately. However, the day does get off to an apprehensive start as I make the rounds to check text messages, e-mails, and phone messages when I get up in the morning. All sorts of lesser perils and delights accumulate while I am sleeping, and I sort of hold my breath as I check each in turn. On the good side, if they come up clean, I'm clear for the day !