I made 3 trips to Middle East this year. Every time I left Dubai for Houston, my flights departed around 1 am in the early morning. One would think that by that time, airport would be like a ghost place. To the contrary, Dubai Airport (DXB) is as busy as daytime (if not busier). Outside the terminal buildings, the rear lights of taxis, shuttles and cars painted a rosy picture full of energy. Once inside, you will not feel it is the middle of the nights. A sign in the terminal says: ”Thank you for the votes to make Dubai Airport the best in the middle east!” I would think it is probably the most efficiently utilized airport in the region.
Similarly, like taxi system in many other big cities around world, Dubai’s taxi drivers have 2 shifts: day and night. Two drivers share one car. Drivers take turn to sleep while cars run 24 hrs. It makes good sense to use whatever we purchase, rent or created as fully as possible.
We are equal in front of time: all of us are given 24 hrs a day, among which we spend 1/3 to work, more or less. Individually, it is impossible for us to work 24 hrs continuously. However, collectively, we make 24-hr work happen.
A few years ago, we formed a software development team in China and transferred some work load to Shanghai. Benefits are multifold. One of them is that we can use the time difference to our advantage. Coding and testing now can take turn to happen and follow/enhance each other. It is 24-hr development cycle.
On the software usage side, customers can now buy or rent the network license of our drilling software. Users can check out the license remotely and return the license upon finishing. This is especially beneficial to big companies with branch offices in different part of the world: drilling engineers in different regions can take turn to use the software without having additional seats of software.
According to Genesis, God created day and night, but He didn’t make them happen for all people at the same time. Probably it is his design to make 24 hrs more efficiently for human race.