Making Time With the Watchmakers 257
PreacherTom writes "In the age of watches that have more computational power than Apollo 11's computer, one would think that the watchmaker has gone the way of the cobbler, the blacksmith and the Dodo. Quite the contrary. With the rise in interest for mechanical watches (especially luxury models), Rolex has sponsored a new school to train horologists in the arcane art. From the article: 'We were facing a situation today where we needed to foster a new generation of watchmakers,' says Charles Berthiaume, the senior vice-president for technical operations at Rolex and the Technicum's president 'Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a watchmaker at every jewelry store. That's not the case today,' he notes. Included are some remarkable examples of their training, dedication, and intricate patience as they take technology in an entirely different direction."
Seems appropriate (Score:3, Interesting)
- Albert Einstein
Re:Wishful thinking (Score:2, Interesting)
I refute your vibrating crystals.
Who still uses watches? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:PreacherTom is an Astroturfer (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was a kid in the early 60's (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought that was so freaking cool, to work on such tiny things like watches.
I had a Mickey Mouse watch that broke and I got to watch him repair it.
I was inspired by him (and other repairmen) to take stuff apart and see "what makes it tick"..
Another thing that was common when I was a kid, there were handymen repair shops where you took just about anything that was broken and the nice man would fix it. Toasters, vacuum cleaners, TV's, radios, whatever.
That's what I wanted to do when I grew up, be a handyman, to just fix broken stuff.
Now I'm older, have arthritis in my hands, my eyes aren't so good anymore, there's just no way I could do this sort of work anymore. That sucks because that's what I love to do more than anything, fix things, work on stuff..
My favorite TV show is "How it's Made" [discovery.com]
Almost a watchmaker (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 15 I lived with him to help on the farm since my Great Grandmother moved in with him. I asked for him to take me as an apprectice as a watchmaker (hey I lived there why not and I was good with guns, clocks, etc) besides my bedrrom was the "Watch Room"
He said he wouldnt mind at all and thought I could make short work of it but he warned me he saw no future in it, as all the watches were going electronic and I could probably never make a living at it.
Investing 8 hrs a day for 2+ years and not having it be a viable profession made my mind up , I decided not to
Last year I was in L.A. I REAL WatchMAKER (not watch repair man, hack, etc, but WATCH MAKER, who can from nothing but raw metal make a watch from scratch command UPWARDS of 250,000 a Year.
DOH ! I have my Grandfather last watch he wore every day, a Seiko, he loved it, it never needed cleaned, and kept perfect time.
The article is about as dead on as it gets......I wish I wish I wish......
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm pondering some 'integration' again - pick a watch with some other handy functionalities. Any suggestions?
It is a truly sad situation today (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't have to go electronic to get extra features. In mechanical watches, these are called "complications." Just look for a watch with multiple complications, such as stop watch, day, date, week, month, year, moon phases, perpetual calendar, etc.
But be warned, when you get a quality watch with more than a few complications, you will be paying major money. The Patek Philippe Calibre 89 has 33 complications, over 1,700 parts, took nine years to design and make, and is worth about $6 million. The thing even calculates the date of Easter every year -- mechanically.
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:When I was a khttp://vg.no/id in the early 60's (Score:2, Interesting)
This gets rather personal, so I'm ACing it: Be glad that you didn't. My dad worked for IBM for 40+ years. He repaired computers (and before that, typewriters). He started back when you would measure radio tubes for defective bits and replace them, all through the way to replacing defective chips on IC cards.
Today, nobody does that. You're a glorified "replace these cards until it works" or worse yet, a glorified delivery boy replacing the broken box with a new one. The circuitry is so small and integrated, your hourly rate so high compared to just pushing out another at the assembly line, it's just not worth it. One of his colleagues sucidied over it, my dad retired.
I've seen that happen to more and more small electronics - just making an estimate of what's wrong exceeds the cost of buying a new cheap device. Shops that used to fix things like that have closed up. Cars are the same - my dad would understand simple engines well, today you need a computer to tell you what's wrong - and probably a computer to fix it.
I must admit, that's just the way it is. Even if I compare it to a "flip the burger" McDonald's rate, you have a very narrow window of oppertunity where an expensive piece of equipment needs to be fixed in a very short time. Ever tried to debug "Well there's some wierd race condition that only happens under load on release builds", it's roughly as bad as "Well the hardware locks up under some wierd conditions". Many times, even if you found an expert of the subject, it's just not worth it or he'll conclude "scrap it, buy a new one". Sorry to rain on your parade but it's just not as glorious as it sounds.
Re:PreacherTom is a BizWeak Astroturfer (Score:2, Interesting)
BusinessWeak magazine? Come on, it is tabloid business journalism at its lamest; entertaining yes, informative sometimes, but rarely if you want in depth information about the topics it purports to cover. I have an MBA and while I could cite some monthly business periodicals in the papers I wrote for classes, Businessweek was rarely one of them.
The WSJ is much better, more accurate, and more insightful and has far more interesting articles in any given week than BusinessWeak does in a typical month. I guess that is why BW needs shills...
Re:PreacherTom is an Astroturfer (Score:3, Interesting)
So...he links to BusinessWeek and presumably makes some money doing so. This is somehow morally reprehensible? I really don't care where the stories come from, as long as they are interesting (i.e. News for nerds, stuff that matters). I have no problems if he manages to eke out of living submitting stories from BuisnessWeek, just like I have no problems with Slashdot making money from this website.
Now, if stories submitted by this guy get preferential treatment in anyway, now that is a problem.
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:3, Interesting)
_I_ do. I'm not in the US though. Price of a house call, about $30
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:2, Interesting)
My watch of choice is a quartz plastic Timex, with a nylon band. It's darn near indestructible (esp. with the nylon, rather than crappy leather or uncomfortable metal bands), pretty damn cheap, yet it has a huge face with analog hands. The only other thing I'd accept on a watch is a calendar, which I still need to fiddle with every other month, and only tolerate because I have trouble remembering what the date is.
The only extras a watch should have are those that would actually improve the main task of keeping time. For example, a watch that automatically adjusted for daylight savings time, or time zones, or leap years. 'course, you could just get an atomic clock radio watch and save yourself a lot of trouble.
I also have a light on my watch. It's designed for illuminating the face, but I find it more useful for seeing in pitch darkness (I use it to find my flashlight when I go camping), but it's definitely a frill I don't need (how often do you need to know the time when you're in pitch darkness?), and it runs down the battery. (Although it gets surprisingly good life. Must be LED or something.)
Also, digital is crap. Analog hands forever. A wristwatch should show you what time it is, not tell you. If you have to read it, you've defeated the point of having a wristwatch. At that point you might as well fish your cell phone out of your pocket.
Many can't afford their own wares (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? I'd much rather work on nice stuff, even if I personally couldn't afford it, rather than work with cheap stuff.
Think about it, would you rather work in a shop turning out finely crafted watches you couldn't afford, or be on an assembly line cranking out plastic watches for Wal-Mart buyers?
I regularly write software that I can't afford, but I enjoy it, and it's a nice living.
What would really suck is working to create a product that you need but can't afford.
Re:Many can't afford their own wares (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:When I was a khttp://vg.no/id in the early 60's (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wishful thinking (Score:3, Interesting)
-nB
Jewler was wrong, I paid $125 for it
-nB
Re:Yeah but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Back to the topic? (Score:3, Interesting)
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Japan), I decided to check the Rolex website for information. It turns out that Rolex is light years ahead of most global companies. They are already embracing a new paradigm: Web 4.0.
Web 4.0 you say? Yes, indeed.
Web 4.0 is retro. The master site for Rolex has no email addresses. None. No email for the headquarters or any office in all their offices flung far throughout the world. No email for you today. It's pure genius. It took me back to my work-a-day world of the 1980s. We used to have businesses back then that managed to survive (and even thrive) without "IT guys." We used to talk on the phone, send letters, send telex or even use those new fancy FAX machines. We could just give the new guy a desk, a phone and some pens.
Think about it for a minute. Which is more frustrating: not being able to fire off an email, or not getting a reply to your email? Or, heaven forbid, a nonsense non-answer or automated "empathy mail like, "We are sincerely interested in your customer service experience and are commited to providing you blah blah blah blah..."
Nip that customer frustration in the bud instead of prolonging the agony of no, or nonsense answers, since you're only going to tell the customer to get lost anyway. The first thing it does for a comapny is eliminate the angst of having to read customer complaints. Who needs that first thing in the morning? It weeds all but the most determined whiners and complainers.
It also eliminates all the IT guys running around without ties having meetings in strange "geekspeak" going frantic about needing the latest version of ComExpRo 9000 version 23.01 beta ($24,000 license fee) and a new Sparkmaster Database Servoserver ($72,000) with 128 Megagoobers of chrome plated exhausts. Or something like that.
No internet. No email. No spam. No security problems. No spyware. No upgrades. No Vista!
And no maps to the office in Tokyo on the web site. If you can afford a Rolex, you shouldn't be sending emails or need maps anyway. Get your secretary to call and get directions. Bingo. If you don't have a secretary, get a casio. No, you should have enough smarts to figure out how to call and get directions.
Off I went to the Tokyo office. It just so happens that I was there about 8 years ago, so I vaguely remembered where it was. It was just a short walk from Tokyo station. Since I'm a guy (internal flawless GPS system installed), I asked my girlfriend to "confirm" my GPS at the station with a random person.
"Oh, the Rolex building? Sure, it's blah, blah, blah..."
It turns out that everyone in Tokyo has been to the Rolex service center since everyone bought several back during the bubble and they all need servicing eventually. I found it easily. I walked directly to the counter after being offered a friendly smile by one of the many friendly-looking counter ladies, only to be handed a plastic tag with a number. I turned around to see about a dozen Rolexers lounging around in leather chairs waiting for their number to be called. All reading Rolex catalogs and Rolex magazines (some were even post Y2K - Rolex had no Y2K problem...). They check your watch as you wait, then present you with an estimate to repair it.
When my number was called, I presented my cold, dead watch to the woman. She was holding it when she asked my if it had stopped. I said something to the effect, "Yes... see?"
She then asked me when it stopped.
Now, this is Japan and all interactions between strangers/customers/gods is formal and exceedingly polite. I formally and politely smiled as I pointed to the watch face and read off the time and date. Grin. Wink.
PreacherTom is not an astroturfer (Score:3, Interesting)
What's more, the argument can be made (and probably should) that PreacherTom and those like him are doing Slashdot a favor by pointing out articles that are more interesting, more relevant, and more informative to the slashdot readers than what they themselves are able to contribute. Would it be better if slashdot readers simply remained ignorant of everything that businessweek et. al publish? I think not. Is there some fundamental problem with someone making money for performing a service that benefits the readers? Nay.