# Created\_at date/time if off by UTC-5 hours?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/created-at-date-time-if-off-by-utc-5-hours/157995>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 17, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/created-at-date-time-if-off-by-utc-5-hours/157995 "2009-01-17T15:40:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![srj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@srj](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/srj)\
**Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 3:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/created-at-date-time-if-off-by-utc-5-hours/157995/1 "2009-01-17T15:40:13Z")

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Hello -

My model has created\_at and updated\_at which get set automatically, as  
expected, but the time is 5 hours off. For example, if I create a new  
record at 7:15:25 AM the created\_at time shows 12:15:25.

I suspect this has to do with my time zone (Eastern Time, United  
States). But if I do a Time.now, it shows the correct time.

Does the Timestamp class use a different zone than the Time class?  
How can I tell Rails (version 2.2.2, by the way) that my time zone is  
Eastern (UTC-5) ?

Or, maybe this is a MySQL issue? If so, how can I tell MySQL about  
the time zone?

Thank you for any help on this,

Steve