Anyone wanna discuss Starfleet and time zones? Because this is a thing I'm thinking about right now.

I know you're thinking, surely there is some Federation Mean Time that they all use, case closed. But hear me out.

We know from TNG (Chain of Command, Pt 1) that Starfleet captains have wide latitude in how they organize their ships--not even in terms of how strictly they enforce rules (like the dress code, Troi), but also organizational stuff like how many shifts they have.

Considering the massive inconvenience this difference in operating policies would present on an organizational level, one has to assume that they have determined that the benefit in terms of allowing ships to adapt to their individual circumstances outweighs the costs.

Ah, a new clue emerges. We need someone who knows about stardates to pick up line two

(I can't google it because memory alpha is blocked on my current network; don't ask). https://twitter.com/JabberwockySR/status/1245445568027152384

But anyway--if they're able to choose their own shift schedules, then would it make sense for them to also have leeway to adjust their time zone to fit their circumstance?

For most ships, staying on San Francisco Time is probably going to be easiest because day/night cycles are a social construct in space and who wants to have a dramatic confrontation with an admiral about their proximity to the neutral zone in the middle of the night?

BUT what if a ship is like, on an extended mission that involves interacting regularly with a planet, ship, or station that has a different time zone? Would it make sense for the ship to adjust?

Ah, @transitionswpz makes a compelling point here.

A Captain: "I want us to move to [time zone], because [reasons]. How long will that take to implement in our computer systems?"

Their Chief Engineer [stares into the middle distance, weeps]: ...forever. https://twitter.com/transitionswpz/status/1245447376069971971

This is how civic tech and management have fundamentally altered my perspective: some people think of the ships as characters but I think of starfleet itself as a character

In a subthread, Data's schedule has come up--he's clearly working nights on the regular. We see him keeping watch on the bridge alone and turning it over to the day shift in the morning.

But in Voyager and Picard, there are allusions to junior officers taking the night shift.

Which leads me to wonder--one assumes there's some benefit to junior officers for this.

Like okay yes someone has to be awake on the bridge and rolls downhill. But surely they are logging bridge hours of some kind that are useful for perf and promotions?

LOCALIZATION has entered the chat https://twitter.com/Jdscotese/status/1245453266034491393

I definitely get this vibe as well, and to some extent it's inevitable especially for senior officers, because what like the senior staff's just going to pull a "screw it I'm off the clock" if the ship goes to red alert? https://twitter.com/MatthewAFrost/status/1245453220736090112

I assume there's an on-call status for specific roles and specialties, and probably on-call tiers within that. So there are going to be crew members who are never on call, then some who are in an on-call rotation, escalating up to "wake the senior staff."

This has led me to a tangential thought about something @polotek said the other day about collaboration styles and collaboration through docs vs. collaboration through meetings: The Enterprise has a clearly established Collaboration Through Meetings culture.

Starfleet as a whole, however, seems to at least try to collaborate through docs (I forget the episode but Wesley snaps at Geordi to read a white paper on warp field mechanics or something, and there are multiple other references to reading papers).

So:
1. Is this a google situation where writing papers is a hugely important part of the culture/perf but doesn't seem to provide measurable value? and

2. Who's organizing all those docs? Is there a wiki? Is there a full-time staff of librarians making sure officers get the right docs are the right time?

Cause this is where a lot of orgs seem to fuck up on documentation. Docs need maintenance and discoverability.

We should perhaps lay aside Starfleet's documentation strategy for another day, however, as it's not related to the time zone question.