Even now, you need to be aware of cultural differences, as well as timezones.
Examples:
(for some definitions of here and there) It's 1300 here which means that it's 1700 there - do people tend to go home at 1700 or 1800?
Lunchtime in France is typically 1200-1400 (local), whereas in Israel it is 1400-1600. If I'm in France, and I need to call up my Israeli colleagues after lunch, simply adjusting for timezone won't do. If I call at 1430 Israeli time, they will have just gone out.
In these situations you currently have to know two things: what time it is over there, and what the cultural norms for work and mealtimes are. If time were internationally uniform, you'd only need the latter.
But it's certainly easier to guess right now. If I called and they were at lunch I would try again after the next hour clicks by, for example. And, in my experience, guessing at a 9-5 day has nearly always worked out for me, with just a few exceptions where I've learned of their slightly odd hours (and in my personal experience, all the people with odd hours are due to those people/companies, not the country they are in).
> In these situations you currently have to know two things: what time it is over there, and what the cultural norms for work and mealtimes are. If time were internationally uniform, you'd only need the latter.
For some time now I've included my time zone in the mouseprint of my email signature block; it'd be easy enough to include one's usual hours of availability as well.
Examples: (for some definitions of here and there) It's 1300 here which means that it's 1700 there - do people tend to go home at 1700 or 1800?
Lunchtime in France is typically 1200-1400 (local), whereas in Israel it is 1400-1600. If I'm in France, and I need to call up my Israeli colleagues after lunch, simply adjusting for timezone won't do. If I call at 1430 Israeli time, they will have just gone out.
In these situations you currently have to know two things: what time it is over there, and what the cultural norms for work and mealtimes are. If time were internationally uniform, you'd only need the latter.