When Should You Send Birthday Messages Across Time Zones?

Problem
When I am in the UK and I receive a message that a friend in the middle East (four hours ahead) has a birthday day, it's already lunch time by the time my message reaches them. I'm one of their afterthought friends, second rank. When I am in London or a European city and my friend or business contact is in the Far East / Asia, the time difference is even worse. By the time my message reaches them the day is nearly over.

The same applies if you are in the USA but more so. Your UK and European-based family. friends and colleagues are a few hours ahead of the East Coast of the USA (New York and Florida), another hour or two on from the central area, more so from the west coast such as San Francisco and LA.

Since your friends may also be travelling, you can't know where all of them are when you send a message. They could have gone abroad for a business trip. Their surprise birthday gift from the family could be a flight off to somewhere else.

The same applies to your goodwill messages for a wedding - they could already be off on a honeymoon, or a wedding anniversary. The same applies to Christmas and Easter.

The same applies to Chinese New Year. (This year, 2017, in January - always on moveable dates in January and February - which may catch you out if you are not Chinese and not living in Asia. Chinese New Year is a family reunion time, which means your holiday flights will be expensive and busy.

The same applies to Jewish New Year and Hanukah. Also, Passover/Seder night which moves about around Easter time and like Christmas is a family reunion dinner.,

For years I have been trying to adapt my holiday messages to suit all occasions. I thought belated wishes already put the sender in a bad light and made the recipient feel forgotten and slighted. So I turned my message into something about the recipient's future happiness of success.

Now I realize that if I am sending a message across time zones I can use this to my advantage. If my friend is celebrating a birthday on the second of the month eight hours ahead in Asia when I am in London, England, a message sent at midnight from London, England will reach them at 8 am in Singapore and all of Asia (except Thailand and Western Indonesia which are an hour behind).

We said ahead - I mean behind. If you are not sure, use an online clock to sort this out. Also note that your laptop or phone or computer may be set to the wrong time zone. Or an app or website may be fixed to the time of its country of origin.

You may be able to set your laptop so it is always set to your home time zone, so that your blogs are set to reach American readers in their daylight hours, or your messages to your own family and children reach them in their daylight hours.

This is handy to have. But it means that if you don't know, or forget to change it, your computer may be not telling you the right time for the recipient of your birthday or seasonal message.

You probably know that New Year starts in Next Zealand and Australia, moved to Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, China) across Russia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, East Coast America and New York, finally the  Mid West and San Francisco and Los Angeles. If you think of that, it will help you to visualize when you should be sending your birthday messages.

So now you have a choice. Adapt your message to the recipient's time zone, or send out earlier if you want them to be sure of getting the message on the birthday morning.

Happy birthday to you, a happy year of sending goodwill messages, whether you are staying home, travelling, or letting your fingers travel.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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