Microsoft has discovered once again that few things strike fear into the heart of a software engineer quite like a government deciding to fiddle with the clocks.
Parts of Canada stopped observing seasonal clock changes on November 1, leaving affected areas of British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba permanently on UTC-07:00, UTC-06:00 and UTC-05:00 respectively. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s sprawling software empire hasn’t entirely caught up.
The company has confirmed problems across a chunk of its software estate, leaving some customers facing incorrect times, broken schedules and a collection of workarounds while Redmond catches up.
Outlook users have been left with the most homework. Switching to the new Canadian time zones won’t automatically update existing calendar entries, meaning that meetings scheduled after November 1 are potentially an hour out of whack.
Microsoft advises users to change their Outlook calendar time zone, then update upcoming events and meetings to use it. For meetings involving other people, only the organizer can make the change.
Posted smugly from Arizona, where Sunday lasted 24 hours.
It’s actually a bit more absurd than that. The Hopi reservation, which is completely surrounded by the Navajo Nation, does not observe DST. But the rest of the state is on MST year-round.
Wow.
Amazes me how absurd that is.
Fun Fact. Indian (US gov’t uses that term legally, so I will here) Tribes are Sovereign Nations. They actually do not need to deal with anything the local and state governments tell them. They deal directly with the Feds just as any other nation-state, with some differences like they can’t declare war on someone.
So if the Hopi want to tell Arizona to get bent on time zones, they can!
It’s one reason why the giant payday loan scammer setup shop on a Reservation. See this fun history for what was called a Rent-A-Tribe Scheme
I mean… If I had the option, I’d declare myself an incomprehensible time zone and use it to skip meetings
If I remember right, Eucla, Australia and a little bit of surrounding area (middle of fucking nowhere on the south coast) is on a completely stupid timezone all to itself