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HONG KONG -- Hong Kong-based executive Travis Darrow had to abandon his amateur basketball team's playoff game at halftime a few years ago. The reason: a 9:30 p.m. conference call with colleagues in the U.S.

Over the roar of his team's victory, Mr. Darrow, now 35 years old, listened to his droning colleagues, who had no idea what time it was in his part of the world. "They had just gotten up and had their coffee, but I was trying to enjoy personal time on a Friday night," he says. "This just killed me."

It was the last straw. Three months later, Mr. Darrow accepted a transfer back to the U.S.

Being global has its drawbacks, like 24-hour workdays for employees in Asia. Over here, the East Coast-centric business world shackles employees to cellphones, strains relationships and produces permanent under-eye bags.

The sun shines on only half the Earth at any given time, and that usually leaves Asia in the dark. "My staff will see an email I sent them at 2 a.m., and wonder if I am working all of the time," says Liu Hao, the 37-year-old Beijing-based CEO of the Chinese recruitment Web site Zhaopin.com.

Usually, he is. Many nights he is online and on the phone with investors in the U.S. until about 3 a.m.

David Wong, a 32-year-old wireless-content entrepreneur in Hong Kong, remembers getting up at 2 a.m. to make a 3 a.m. phone pitch. To sound perky, he gulped coffee, sprinted around the house to get his blood flowing and started talking to himself to wake up his vocal cords. His part of the call lasted just five minutes, after which he couldn't fall asleep.

Sometimes, bad timing is unavoidable, especially for tricontinental conferences. At night in Asia, it's midafternoon in Europe and morning in the U.S., so everybody else is sort of awake. No question annoys international employees more than, "What time is it over there?"

For the record, it's easy to figure out. Much of East Asia, including all of China, Hong Kong and Singapore, is exactly 12 hours ahead of New York City. So just flip the a.m. and p.m., and you've got it. Add one hour more if you're in Chicago. And when the U.S. switches to daylight-saving time, just add one more hour.

Well, maybe it's not that easy. If you get confused, just type, "What time is it in Hong Kong?" into Google.

But is it really confusion, or is it that American co-workers just don't care what time it is elsewhere? "They don't know, and also just don't want to deal with those sorts of things," says Ian Spaulding, a 34-year-old who works in manufacturing in Hong Kong for an American retailer.

He heads a team of employees based around the world, and ends up taking calls during his night. Until a recent upgrade, his corporate email and shared-calendar system wasn't able to account for the fact that he is 13 hours ahead, so people kept booking him for calls at 3 in the morning, when he seemed to always be available.

"When you are in a corporate headquarters, everyone outside of that office is not really front and center," says Mr. Spaulding. He privately fantasizes about what life would be like working back in America where people can just go to sleep at night.

Some people refuse to let work get in the way -- no matter what they're doing when a call comes in -- yet can't let a call go unanswered. The "mute" option is one coping strategy, and can be a godsend during awkwardly timed calls. "I put the phone on mute while I have my son in the high chair and am stuffing food into his face," says Kitty Potter, 35, who works with Adidas manufacturers and lives in Beijing.

But not everybody remembers to press the button. Denise Mak, a 26-year-old who works in private equity in Hong Kong, was once on an 11 p.m. conference call interrupted by an unmistakable sound.

"There were some quite senior people involved, and we weren't sure who was snoring," she says. Everyone was too embarrassed to try to find the source.

Ms. Potter admits she once took a call from her boss during an early-morning doctor's appointment. These days, now that her two-year-old is sleeping on a regular schedule, she has instituted a "no noise from gadgets" rule after bedtime for herself and her husband.

Kelly Allen is taking the revolt a step further. The 32-year-old, Hong Kong-based IT manager has convinced her U.S. colleagues to condense all of their communication with her to one weekly call on Tuesdays from 8:45 to 10 p.m. They call that meeting "fight club."

For Mr. Darrow, who left Asia out of time-zone frustration, living in America didn't bring satisfaction. In the home office, he was forced to report to a team that was based in Asia, and so ended up staying up late all over again in the U.S.

Last year, he moved back to Hong Kong. "At least people here don't look at you like you're a slacker if you come in at 9:30 or 10 after a late night of work at home."