America's worst time zone revealed - where 'whiplashed' locals are 'always playing catch up'

Americans living in the central time zone might be struggling more than their eastern and pacific counterparts. 

Locals sticking to central time - always an hour behind for east coast meetings - live in 20 different states and sizable metropolises such as Chicago and Houston. 

Despite the central time zone having important cities and a large population, writer Ian Bogost says central timers are 'always just a little bit too early and a fair amount too late'.

People living on central time are always playing catch up with the east coasters who set 'the pace for the nation.' Trading hours for the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are dictated by east coast time. 

Central time is two hours ahead of the west coasters who have solidly embraced their role as the laid-back ones in American society.

In a piece published on The Atlantic, Bogost writes how people with their clocks set to central essentially have an identity crisis and get constant whiplash trying to cater to east coast and the west coast with business and work.

As he puts it: 'Nobody needs to visit you in Tulsa or Little Rock to coordinate a call or set a deadline... This creates a special and profound malaise.'

And at a time when US companies are more reliant on Zoom calls than ever before after the pandemic popularized remote work, scheduling issues have likely gotten even more pronounced for people in central time.

Bogost, who said he lives in St. Louis, Missouri, wrote that the mountain time zone shares central time's 'temporal confusion' but points out that most of the states there - Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico - are so sparsely populated that it isn't as much of an issue.

Plus, he adds, mountain time at least gets a name that prompts thoughts of thin, clear air and 'rugged individualism.' Central time isn't even a cool name, rather, it's quite 'middling,' according to Bogost.

Of course, there's a reason why the US has the time zones it does, and it wasn't to stick it to the people an hour behind New York City where Wall Street is or Washington D.C. where our capital sits.

The contiguous United States, which excludes Alaska and Hawaii, has had four time zones since 1883: eastern, central, mountain and pacific. 

That's when the US railroad companies, which at that time were the primary way goods were transported throughout the country, became fed up with having to navigate more than 144 local times in North America.

The lack of time standardization prior to 1883 led to mix-ups in train scheduling and even collisions, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. 

When transportation modes continued to develop, including the advent of air travel, the government began regulating timekeeping even more stringently. 

The Department of Transportation was created by Congress in 1966 for this reason. One of its responsibilities aside from regulating all forms of transportation in the country, is 'regulating, fostering, and promoting widespread and uniform adoption and observance of standardized time.'

So if there's anyone to blame for Bogost's central time woes, its the Department of Transportation.