Why Aren’t We All on the Same Time Zone? - Patrick J Kiger on How Stuff Works

Time zones are confusing to people who routinely communicate or travel across them, and some people are proposing to put the whole world on one time zone - UTC, which is five hours ahead of Eastern time in the US.

This does not mean that New York businesses would open five hours earlier. A business that opens at 9 am today would open at the same time under the new system, it’s just that the clock would say 2 pm. Everybody would get used to it quickly, say proponents of the change.

I think this is a bad idea, simply because I don’t think there are enough people doing business across time zones to make it worthwhile to change the system for everybody.

However, I have thought for years, that there should be a custom of using universal time for those of us who DO have business crossing time zones. I’ve been routinely doing business across time zones for many years, and even now I still occasionally miscalculate, or propose a meeting time to someone without specifying which time zone I mean.