They Couldn’t Stand for Y2K Countdown

Postal officials thought it was a benign little promotional item: digital clocks counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the new millennium.

But they didn’t anticipate that the clocks--with their big red numbers--would remind customers of how long they had spent waiting in line.

“The customers said it made them feel more time-conscious. It made them feel hurried, like their lives are going too fast,” said Jackie Beall, postmaster in nearby Colleyville. “Some customers said, ‘Y2K is coming anyway, why are you putting this stress on us?’ ”

The clocks are coming down in dozens of Texas post offices in response to recent customer surveys.