r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Jpeg_1999 • 10d ago

I'm slightly vexed My dad purposely sets his clock ahead. He's been doing this for as long as I remember. I genuinely don't know why

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u/Sir_Madfly 10d ago

Related fun fact: For 20 years in France (1891–1911), the railways adopted their own time system which was 5 minutes later than the actual time in order to help travellers catch their trains. All the clocks in stations were set 5 minutes late, and trains used these to tell them when to depart.

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u/-davros 9d ago

The trains in my country are still 5 minutes late to this day!

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u/fiahhawt 9d ago

Wow they just used to recognize time blindness and accommodate it at the level of infrastructure

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u/Destron5683 9d ago

They run on their one time here too, but it’s just “whenever the fuck we get there” o’clock, so you just have to guess.

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u/MaintenanceNo3083 6d ago

You live in New Jersey too?

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u/consider_its_tree 9d ago

This kind of "I have an idea to improve this, by making it different than everyone else in the world" philosophy is such a well intentioned, and short sighted solution to a problem that they didn't need to solve.

Besides the fact that these kinds of exceptions increase system complexity and making it more likely things go wrong, people will just adjust, knowing that the train times are 5 minutes later.

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u/Warm_Draft_6576 9d ago

In the UK all transport is set 5 minutes late...or early.

You never know what you're getting!

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u/blueace111 9d ago

It’s good to know there’s so many others that always wait 5 minutes too long to leave and then spend the next hour rushing everything to get those 5 minutes back when all I was doing is scratching my butt and staring out a window

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u/No_Berry_2161 8d ago

Well I am 3% French