When I was in the military I spent a decent chunk of time stationed in pacific time zone. One upside was not having to stay up nearly as late to watch sports games to their conclusion.
You probably won't be the first person responding to issues at work, because the people in Eastern timezone have probably already started to handle it by the time you're up. Likewise, if you have a deadline like "end of day", you have some extra breathing room over the other continental timezones. The downside of that is that if things are still broken by EOD Pacific, you're most likely to have to work late to fix it.
One nice thing about working in earlier timezones is that if a lot of people at your company are Pacific, you'll probably get a few peaceful hours before things really start going.
My company has flex time, with core hours of 12PM-5PM EST / 9AM-2PM PST, the overlap of 9 to 5 coast to coast. For East Coasters, it means you can’t really come in early to leave early; meetings may run to the end of your workday. For West Coasters, it’s the opposite, you can’t come in late and stay late, and meetings can start as soon as you clock in. For this aspect, I think the happy medium is in CST or MST.
I once had an office job at a teapot factory with locations in pacific, central, and eastern time zones. I was personally in one of the central time locations. You’re right - it absolutely was a happy medium.
I don't live there but I would imagine one advantage being that if someone forgets about timezones and calls you in the evening, you are likely to be awake?
The disadvantage is if they do that in the morning.
Ofc both of these are joke answers bc who uses "phones" anymore, especially ones without a Do Not Disturb function? 😉