This is an act of rebellion that nobody would have ever thought witnessing: Greg Allen, a 42-year-old accountant from Milwaukee, has announced that he will no longer be participating in the biannual ritual of adjusting clocks for Daylight Saving Time. While most Americans and Europeans set their clocks back last weekend, getting their hour back after trading it in the name of tradition and proven useless energy-saving measures, Greg remains defiantly on “his own schedule,” one hour ahead of everyone else.
“It’s a scam,” he said, with the fervor of a man convinced he’s uncovered an age-old conspiracy. “Twice a year, society expects us to mess with time like it’s some loose change in our pockets. Well, not me. I’m sticking to what I call ‘Greg Standard Time, or GST for short.’ If people want to be puppets of Big Clock, that’s their choice, but I won’t be a pawn in their ticking game.”
As a pioneer of the self-declared “True Time Movement,” Greg has chosen to keep his watch, phone, and all clocks in his home permanently set to daylight saving time, refusing to be part of what he calls “seasonal time tyranny.”
Confusion and Compromise
The Allen household has been quick to feel the ripple effects of Greg’s decision. His wife, Angela, shared her frustrations, though she claims she’s “adjusting.”
“We’ve had to label our clocks,” she explained. “Our kitchen clock is now set to winter time, but the living room clock is on ‘Greg Time.’ I’ve taken to wearing two watches to keep up with whatever alternate reality he’s operating in.” Angela’s efforts to convince her husband that he’s still beholden to the company’s office hours, the kids’ school schedule and social events have all been dismissed as “societal conditioning.”
When Greg’s boss pointed out that he would be consistently arriving an hour “late” to work, Greg countered, “I’m arriving on real time, not this fake seasonal schedule the rest of you have bought into.” Though his boss seemed surprised at first, he now simply reminds Greg of the correct start time via email every Monday.
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“Big Clock” Conspiracy: A Fight for “Truth in Time”
Greg’s defiance, however peculiar, is rooted in what he describes as a “deeply held belief in the power of autonomy.” “I’m not just changing the way I tell time; I’m making a statement,” he told reporters outside his office building. “For centuries, we’ve allowed ‘Big Clock’ – that’s what I call the government and clock companies – to dictate when we sleep, eat and work. But no one ever stops to ask why.”
While Greg’s coworkers might have rolled their eyes at first, his consistent one-hour-ahead approach has begun to create logistical headaches. “We thought he’d cave,” said Jim Miller, Greg’s supervisor. “But it’s been two weeks, and the guy shows up to every meeting an hour early or stays on his own personal schedule. We had a meeting at 10:00 last week, and there he was at 9:00 a.m., just sitting there with a coffee complaining about how ‘everyone is late again’, looking like he’d been in the Matrix and seen the truth.”
Unsurprisingly, Greg has gained a few followers who share his vision, though they, too, find themselves fumbling when coordinating with the non-believers. He even launched a Facebook group called “Break Free from Big Clock,” a place for like-minded souls who feel oppressed by the twice-yearly clock adjustments. As of today, the group has twelve members, four of whom are Greg’s relatives.
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Daily Life in “Greg Standard Time”
Living an hour ahead of society presents constant challenges, but Greg insists he’s up for it. “My friends are getting used to it,” he claims. “They might complain about me turning up at restaurants ‘early’ or texting them when they’re still in bed, but that’s not my problem. I’m operating on a higher level of freedom.”
Angela remains skeptical but resigned. “I’ve tried everything to talk him out of it,” she said. “But he insists he’s on the path to enlightenment, or whatever. I just tell the kids that Daddy has his own time now, and we don’t question it.” Greg’s children, ages six and nine, are also adjusting, though they sometimes find it perplexing that their father is an hour ahead of the world. “Dad’s watch is weird,” his son admitted. “He’s always telling us what time it is, but it’s always wrong.”
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The “New Normal” and the Future of Personal Time Zones
While his colleagues and family largely find Greg’s crusade inconvenient at best, a small wave of supporters from across the country have reached out, some even adopting their own versions of “personal standard time.” Greg has big dreams for the movement, claiming that one day, everyone will “wake up” to the realities of artificial time changes and break free from their cyclical oppression.
“When you let go of Big Clock’s control, you start to see things differently,” Greg mused, with a faraway look in his eyes. “Imagine a world where everyone lives by their own time. No deadlines, no adjustments, no daylight saving nonsense. Just freedom of time.”
For now, Greg’s rebellion against the clock remains an outlier, a curious phenomenon in an otherwise synchronized world. But to him, the fight for true temporal independence has only just begun.
“People say I’m crazy,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe I am. But when they finally realize how liberating it is to break free from time constraints, they’ll be the ones feeling silly. Mark my words: we’ll look back on seasonal time changes as relics of an era before people understood the true nature of time.”
Only time will tell – and Greg as well as his followers will know an hour earlier than the rest of us.
