alt Hacker NewsOn a slightly related topic I was recently thinking of how simple it is to only have to worry about one calendar in your personal and business life (the western gregorian calendar). If you're an even slightly observant Muslim with an educated techincal/professional life in many parts of the historical Persian speaking world, you have three calendars to keep track of:
1) Western gregorian calendar (doing business with foreigners, international travel, banking, finance, most everything done on the Internet, etc).
2) Islamic arabic originated lunar calendar (When does Ramadan start, when is an okay time to go for hajj, when is Eid Al-Fitr, when is Eid Al-Adha, etc). This goes "backwards" 10 to 11 days per year compared to the western gregorian calendar so in different decades Ramadan might be in the middle of summer, or middle of winter.
3) Persian solar calendar for new year observances like Nowruz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowruz , and generally persian-related cultural things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Hijri_calendar
But wait, there's more! Let's say you live in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan or that region and you do business with Russians. You might have to think about when the Russians are on vacation and businesses are closed, because they're taking holidays and religious observances based on the eastern orthodox calendar. Basically all the same problem as trying to get business things done in the UK on a UK standard "Bank Holdiay". Their Christmas is not the same as the western Gregorian calendar Christmas...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_liturgical_ca...
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It depends what kind of business... there are all sorts of weird and wonderful accounting / financial calendar inventions like the 4-4-5 calendar, fiscal years ending in June, bond day count conventions like 30/360, etc.
I do take your point though. I've always found it quite surprising just how universal various arbitrary/western things are like, as you say, the western gregorian calendar, seconds/minutes/hours, SI units for measurement. In a world with so many unintelligible languages and disagreements, you'd think there would be more folks out there doing, I dunno, a 10 day week, or some non-hour/minute system, etc.
Even on 1), the first day of the week being Sunday (US) and Monday (Europe) screws me up constantly, as someone who is in both worlds now.
I often pick the wrong date for meetings because I'm assuming next Monday will be in the first column, not the second. As dumb and simple as it is, when something has been drilled into you since about age 3 its tough to get in the habit of double checking it when it starts becoming inconsistent.