ls -l | cut -c 35-41 6 Nov 1 6 Nov 6 Nov 1 6 Nov 1
What were you expecting? That your character ranges in ls would match mine?
I would expect the command to work in any directory. Try a few different directories on your computer and you'll see that it won't work in some of them.
But ... why expect that? That's not what "character ranges" mean.
I mean, I was only trying to clarify that `cut` is not limited to fields only.