On March 28, at Habraseminar, Ivan Zvyagin, editor-in-chief at Habr, advised me to write an article about the everyday life of our linguistic Skype school. “People will be interested in hundreds of pounds,” he promised, “now many are creating online schools, and it would be interesting to know this cuisine from the inside.”
Our Skype language school, with the funny name GLASHA, has existed for seven years, and for seven years our operators have been working in emergency mode twice a year.
This annual nightmare is connected with the change of time in different countries.
The fact is that teachers and students of our Skype school live in 26 countries on different continents.
Accordingly, at normal times, we try to arrange them in the teacher's schedule one by one to make it more convenient.
The teacher sends us his availability, for example like this:
And when a new student appears who can take lessons in the specified slots, we put him on the schedule.
Thus, students from Russia, Israel, Canada and France find themselves together in the schedule of a teacher who, for example, lives in Brazil.
They study calmly until the time when Maurice, the same teacher, changes to winter time, that is, until mid-February.
How do you know when Brazil will switch to winter time? Very simple:
The full wording is: "the third Sunday in February, except when Carnival falls on it."
This year, apparently, there was a carnival, since the transition happened suddenly on February 17th.
After receiving information from Maurice, we should have moved the entire "Babylonian" team of students an hour later. Or offer Maurice to give lessons for them an hour earlier.
In the case of Maurice, it works, hooray! In the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia and Distrito Federal) it was possible to sleep longer one night.
Fortunately, our other teacher, Rachel, an English teacher, lives in another region of Brazil - Rio Grande do Norte.
Despite all the carnivals, the time there for the winter does not change. Lucky.
Until November 3rd, some parts of Brazil can be relaxed during the transition to summer time, if Maurice does not leave for China or return to Holland in the meantime.
However, the miracle did not happen to Alessandra, who lives in Australia, she can only stick to her tough winter schedule. And winter in Australia has just begun. Therefore, all her students have to be moved by one hour. This requires a lot of time and effort, as some students study from work, and young students already have clearly scheduled circles and sections.
According to winter time, residents of New South Wales and Victoria, whose capitals are Sydney and Melbourne, began to live and work. Now the difference with Moscow time there is plus 7 hours. In the same way, they changed the time in Canberra and on the island of Tasmania.
And wherever the fate of our students and teachers does not throw!
One single student, Masha Zelenina, lives with us in the west of the continent in the state of Western Australia. They do not change the time there, thus, the five-hour difference with Moscow continues to be maintained.
Do not change the time in the Northern Territory - the difference with Moscow time was and is 6 and a half hours. But in the state of South Australia, the clock hands were moved back an hour, and now the difference with Moscow time here will be 6 and a half hours.
So, winter in the Southern Hemisphere has started. You can live in peace for a couple of weeks.
Daylight Saving Time starts on the second Sunday in March at 02:00 AM in the US and Canada, and back at 02:00 AM on the first Sunday in November. Only Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands do not cross.
In Canada, the time in Saskatchewan does not change. Huge hello to our teacher Brian!
Arizona does not change clocks (but upstate Americans do).
In mid-March, we change the schedule of students from Russia and European countries for two weeks, since at the end of March the time in Europe and the USA will be correlated with Canada.
This usually happens on the night from Saturday to Sunday, but before that, on Friday, Israel switches to daylight saving time. Since the religious Shabbat falls on Saturday night.
Accordingly, we have to make small changes for Friday lessons before the global shift for 500 students on Sunday.
Many Skype schools probably use some kind of built-in automatic time translation and notification systems for students and teachers, but I can’t imagine how automatic systems can be used in our case.
Since each student needs an individual approach. For example, one student can take lessons late in the evening, while others cannot concentrate at 18.00.
Despite the fact that we stand upside down and ask other students to move, every time some of the students have to change teachers.
This means the organization of additional test lessons, psychological discomfort and disruption of the educational process.
Students and faculty tend to become attached to each other and do not easily accept substitutions.
In March 2019, all EU member states switched to summer time for the last time, and by October next year, each EU state will have to independently decide whether it will remain in summer time or switch to winter time.
It looks like this innovation will add to our headaches.
In addition, the Russian government is constantly putting forward proposals to return the transition to daylight saving time. This is in addition to the fact that in 2016 the Astrakhan and Saratov regions of Russia, as well as Ulyanovsk, the Trans-Baikal Territory and Sakhalin changed the time by an hour, in 2017 the Volgograd region joined them.
Fortunately, Japan, China, India, Singapore, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan do not change the time yet
And even sites of the exact time do not always have time to make updates to their programs.
In addition, over the years of work, we have learned that there are countries where the difference with Moscow is not a multiple of an hour, but half an hour, these are India +2,5 and Iran +1.5
So problems with coordination in time can sneak up where they were not expected at all.
We always check the skill of accurate timing during interviews with new operators, and their number is constantly growing. It is very disappointing when the lesson breaks down due to the fact that the difference with Moscow and Kazakhstan was considered in the wrong direction. Fortunately, this rarely happens.
Currently, you can choose the best teachers from all over the world, and you can study according to any convenient schedule, but behind this convenience, the hard work of Skype school operators builds.
Source: habr.com