Challis Hodge’s UXblog

I’m sure this story will be blogged to death before I can hit publish but I just can’t resist! Some things just never cease to amaze me.

FORT WORTH — The missing clock didn’t stop postal customer Al Cunningham from noticing the amount of time spent waiting for service.

“It’s always long here,” said Cunningham, 49, an insurance adjuster and former postal employee who was standing in line at the Watson Post Office in Fort Worth.

The Watson Post Office is one of the nation’s 37,000 post offices in which clocks have been removed from retail areas as part of a “retail standardization program” launched last year. The effort is designed to give the public-service areas a more uniform appearance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported in Thursday editions.

“We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock,” said Stephen Seewoester, Dallas spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service.

At the Fort Worth post office, the hook that once held up the small battery-powered clock now protrudes from a plaster wall. The clock was taken down months ago.

A customer-service expert at Texas A&M University was not impressed with the decision to take down the timepieces.

“It’s silly,” said Leonard Berry, holder of the M.B. Zale Chair in Retail and Marketing Leadership. “I guess they think people don’t have watches.”

Now to be fair, removing the clocks will likely change the perception of wait time for some folks. For others they may miss an appointment because they waited in line too long or simply skip the process all together.

Time has certainly become a precious resource for most people. Unfortunately the business community has been slow to respond–at least in a balanced way. Take your local family medical practitioner. They expect their patients to arrive promptly for their appointments yet they feel completely comfortable leaving the same patients sit in a waiting room for 45 minutes past the appointment time without an acknowledgment or explanation. The message they send is simple. Our time is important but yours is not. No I’m not bitter ;-)

Real estate projects worth Dh165 billion ($45 billion) are currently under construction in Dubai with another Dh165 billion ($45 billion) in the development stages according to recent estimates.

Freehold and leasehold property laws allowing non-GCC expatriates to own homes in various emirates have rejuvenated the real estate market, bringing to an end the uncertainties about properties already bought or booked. This in turn has paved the way for buyers to focus on the design and decoration of their homes.

For such buyers, the ideal opportunity comes in the form of Dubai Ideal Home Show. The show is scheduled to take place at the Airport Expo Dubai from November 30 to December 3.

The GCC and the Middle East regions have witnessed sustained buyers interest including from internationally renowned professionals following the move by Dubai back in 2002 to allow freehold property for expatriates. Major projects announced subsequently have seen most of the properties being bought by either investors or homeowners.

Collecting imagery from the many Dubai projects–past, present & future–has become quite a hobby:

Dubai’s Mega Projects 

Dubai Projects: Palm Island, etc.