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My two year old played with my calendar clock, and while it still shows the correct time, now it tells me my name, where I work, and also something I should do, which I'd rather not. What is it?

Hint 1

The clock is a fairly cheap device available globally - I own and use it in real life, it is operating as designed and not broken in any way

Hint 2

What I should do, my place of work, and my name show up sequentially, not at the same time (and are not my real life info)

Hint 3

What I should do, my place of work, and my name show up every week

Hint 4

It's showing my name today, showed my place of work yesterday, and what I should do two days ago. Bonus: it'll show my wife's name in two days.

Hint 5

All of this repeats every week.

Hint 6

The solution has only to do with the display that shows the current day of the week. It is not related to segment displays.

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't have a whole answer yet, but is your name rot13(Wnfba) by any chance? I can see how the calendar feature might cause that to appear... $\endgroup$
    – Darrel Hoffman
    Jul 31, 2019 at 20:31
  • $\begingroup$ rot13(Vf lbhe svnaprr'f anzr Wnarg)? $\endgroup$
    – A. I. Breveleri
    Aug 1, 2019 at 3:18
  • $\begingroup$ @DarrelHoffman no - I'm preparing some hints for the question $\endgroup$
    – knabar
    Aug 1, 2019 at 5:00
  • $\begingroup$ @A.I.Breveleri no, although her name could also show up $\endgroup$
    – knabar
    Aug 1, 2019 at 5:01
  • $\begingroup$ I can't shake off the sensation that your name is May and it's something to do with April 30th and 1st of May. Am I way off? $\endgroup$
    – Konrad Viltersten
    Aug 1, 2019 at 10:10

4 Answers 4

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If a 2 year old played with your clock, it could have

changed the display language to German (see the tag)

With your hints given

- it shows up once in a week
- it shows up sequentially.
so I think we are searching weekday names that match "Name, Place of work, Do something"
German Weekdays:
Montag (Monday)
Dienstag (Tuesday)
Mittwoch (Wednesday)
Donnerstag (Thursday)
Freitag (Friday)
Samstag (Saturday)
Sonntag (Sunday)
Mostly abbreviated with the first three letters

Then let us pick a name

Don from Donnerstag (Thursday)

Pick a place of work

MIT from Mittwoch (Wednesday)

Pick something you don't wanna do

Die from Dienstag (Tuesday)

And bonus, your wife's name

Sam from Samstag (Saturday)

And why wasn't it there before?

The English abbreviations would be different, so they started to show after your child changed the language of the clock

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  • $\begingroup$ Translate the numbers into German and find the name of an athletic gear company $\endgroup$
    – user3294068
    Jul 31, 2019 at 14:00
  • $\begingroup$ @user3294068 Found it, you mean rot13(Qervffvt Nguyrgvp). I dont think that numbers are written out on a calender clock. So the number would be there before in english too. $\endgroup$
    – Bananenkopp
    Jul 31, 2019 at 14:45
  • $\begingroup$ @user3294068 rot13(Trezna qbrf cynl vagb gur fbyhgvba, ohg vg'f zhpu zber fgenvtugsbejneq) $\endgroup$
    – knabar
    Jul 31, 2019 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ This has to be it. Nice job! $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Aug 1, 2019 at 9:31
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ So after showing the wife's name, it then tells us who was responsible for all this? $\endgroup$
    – Admiral Jota
    Aug 5, 2019 at 14:12
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I think that the calendar clock is now looking like this:

enter image description here
Because your 2-year old put it upside down, when it was displaying 09:31:0X (the X is not important at all)
enter image description here

You name is

DIEGO
(upside down 09310 - 0 = "D", 1 = "I", 3 = "E", 9 = "G", 0 = "O")

You work at

San Diego

It tells you to

DIE - which you should do eventually, but you would rather not
GO - you should go somewhere, but you don't want to

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  • 7
    $\begingroup$ Good guess, but the solution I'm looking for does involve the "calendar" component of the clock. Upvote for getting very close to the right solution though! $\endgroup$
    – knabar
    Jul 31, 2019 at 9:51
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If the time and date are

7:11 on Wednesday, July 10

the clock would be showing

your place of work, 7-Eleven (7:11),
your name, Julio (Jul 10),
and something you'd rather not do: Wed.

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  • $\begingroup$ Great one! Didn't think there would be so many possible answers. The one I was thinking of is still out there, also see the hints I added. $\endgroup$
    – knabar
    Aug 1, 2019 at 6:05
  • $\begingroup$ But what did the two year old do with the clock? $\endgroup$
    – Bananenkopp
    Aug 1, 2019 at 7:32
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Another (not so) creative answer:

The lines on a clock change as follows:
- Wednesday (that's your name)
- 8.1 1:15 (on a 7-segment display it can be easily read as BILLS - you should pay bills, but definitely do not want to do this)
- 99°F (reads as GGF, your workplace) - this clock is equipped by a temperature sensor (this is not uncommon), and your 2-year-old heated the clock with her hands while playing (99°F, or 37.2°C, is close to body temperature)

Unfortunately

today is really August 1, but not Wednesday.

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