Using negative offsets for calendar alarms

Ever need to set an alarm after a meeting in your calendar started? Well I had to do this yesterday and since I have previously looked into the inner workings of the alarms in the calendar I kinda know how it works – ($Alarms)-folder and all.

Since the functionality, simplistically explained, is a matter of taking the offset you specify, convert the number into seconds, subtract it from the start time of the meeting, set a couple of $Alarm-fields and add the document to the ($Alarms)-folder I thought I might get away with entering a negative value for the offset. Entering a negative offset would effectively make the offset be added to the start time instead of subtracted and hence have the alarm go off after the meeting started.

And the big question – does it work? Well yes it does… So if you ever need this kind of functionality you know what to do.