"Midnight"
 

I have a basic question here with a not-so-basic answer. We just had a 15-minute debate here at work over this.

Last week, a company-wide e-mail was sent out saying that "the server will be unavailable beginning midnight Thursday, September 13 through Sunday, September 16." If you were showing up to work at 8:00 Thursday morning, would you expect the server to be up or down?

I would probably just ask for clarification.

I'd expect it to be down. Midnight Thursday means Weds night/Thursday morning to me.

After midnite, we're gonna let it all hang out.

down

next day starts at midnight. What'cha win?

I think midnight = 0:00

So Wednesday night is 11:59pm -> 0:00am (Midnight) Thursday morning.

I would assume the box would be down at 8am Thursday morning.

I would have taken that to mean 0000 on Friday morning.

Midnight is the name of the raid leader of my WoW guild. I think Pumpy is coming up with a not-so-clever way of stalking me.

I would definitely schedule a meeting with the lady a couple of doors down, to be absolutely sure.

If it affected whether I needed to come in to work or not, I'd ask. I have to be here anyway - even on Friday - so it didn't matter enough for me to ask the question. I'm just curious about how many people are on each side of the debate, as I was outnumbered 4-to-2 just now.

Yes, I know I haven't stated which side I'm on yet.

And I'd schedule the meeting to be reoccurring, M-F at midnight.

I'm going the other way on this one. I say "up."

While technically 0:00 am (Midnight) is Thursday morning, most people would consider "midnight" as part of that night, as opposed to the next day's morning. For example, if someone said "Let's meet up Friday at midnight," I would be much more inclined to think I was meeting them Friday night as opposed to Thursday night.

That's not important. You're just a loser, dude.

Would that be Monday night through Friday night, or Sunday night through Thursday night? She's gonna want to know this.

Yes. I would interpret midnight Thursday as the end of Thursday, not the beginning.

Well, shit. OK, this thread is getting deleted.

Thanks for the input, guys!

All talk, no action.

Whatever dude.

I would have expected it to be down.

I would interpret it as the midnight between Thursday and Friday, though.

You have to admit, that was a poorly worded memo.

Better set it to all seven days of the week then, to avoid any non-meeting interaction.

I would think it means Thursday/Friday

OK, I took it to mean that the server would be down. In a more casual situation - such as meeting with friends someplace - I would assume Thursday night. In this case, however, I suppose I expected more precision, as this was coming from the IT department involving official company business. I figure that the clock changes from 11:59pm Wednesday to 12:00am Thursday; therefore, midnight Thursday is the beginning of the day.

Now, I can obviously see how it is open to interpretation, and the bottom line is that the memo was worded poorly. If they would've said "midnight Thursday night," it may not be technically correct, but I wouldn't question it or be confused about it either. It would get the point across, and I wouldn't care. In this case, it was ambiguous. What got me in the debate was that I and the one person who agreed with me conceded that it's ambiguous. The four people on the other side couldn't understand my view at all. One of them actually asked me (somewhat seriously) who taught me how to tell time.

After further research, it appears that the term "midnight" is naturally ambiguous, as it's the exact midpoint between one day and another. Technically, it's neither day. Of course, it's highly unlikely that the IT department is going to take the server down in that instant, so it's probably going to be sometime between 12:00am and 12:01am, which is where I was coming from with my argument.

Whatever the case, the server is up today and will be down tomorrow. I just thought that IT could've communicated their plans a little better. Adding one word would've cleared the whole thing up. Just say "Thursday night" instead of "Thursday." Oh, well. Like I said, I had to be here anyway.

Why couldn't they just wait a minute to take it down?

this.

Did you tell the person who asked you where you learned to tell time:

"Oh, you are SO done. Be sure to check the cables next time you ride the mine elevator, or buy deodorant at Walgreens."

because then it would have been friday. duh.

I agree with this completely.

Have you bugged my office or something??

I'm Canadian....we do things ass backwards...so i can;t help.

Why would somebody need to check the cables when buying deodorant at Walgreen's?

I take it you've never been to Pennsylvania.

+1

I agree with all of this. "Midnight" to meet up at a bar is the end of the night. Midnight for server being down is the beginning of the morning. In addition, this is why when scheduling things work related I use 12:01 and 11:59, but never midnight or noon.

Wording it "Midnight, Thursday" makes me think it's down Thursday morning.

If it had been worded "Thursday at midnight" I'd assume it would be down Friday.

Your company informs you of such activities?

Mine wastes memos on interns birthdays "Stop by and wish her a happy birthday!" yet when it comes to important operational activities we're on our own... No servers, yeah we knew. Is that a problem? Deal with it.

:D

SI

The term Midnight means the last gasp of the night before 12am, IMO. (As in the instant right before/right at 12am right before it is the AM.) Thats why its called midNIGHT. They should have put 12am Thursday instead, obviously.

But it is going down on 12am Friday (about an hour from now in my time zone). :)

I got an email from my boss today at 12:01am stating that a new person is starting "tomorrow". I thought of this thread and chuckled :)

The server's down today, and I'm a little bored. Does anyone want to come over and dance?

Get your butt on AIM.

Hence the reason all insurance policies start at 12:01 a.m. of a certain date. It's actually a pretty important issue for something like that.