Seiko Board of Directors - The Follow-Up

Around July 2023 under the title "Seiko Board of Directors" I posted this: "You're on the Board of Directors at Seiko. You can make one (and only one) change to Seiko watches, or to the company. What would it be?"

There were 168 responses. Everything from regulation to affordable Spring Drive, to firing the Board of Directors completely. There were many other answers as well. Armed with this knowledge and to show my appreciation for all the WatchCrunch responses, I felt that I could do no less than go to Japan and present my findings to the Seiko board.

There were just a couple of problems. I'm not sure my 2006 Hyundai Elantra could make the trip. It's named after St. Elantra, the patron saint of leaky automatic transmissions. The Japanese might not appreciate that it's a Korean car. And Joe Biden gas is $3.69 a gallon this week.

But all of that could be sorted out. The real problem, and everyone reading this knows what it is, was this - what watch would I wear? Naturally a Seiko. But I have 13 of them. Which would be the most appropriate?

We're talking about a serious business situation. Serious, but not formal. That leaves out my SGEG97P1 with its Roman numerals. And my solar SUP873P1 which looks like a working man's Credor. Too formal. And it couldn't be an orange or green dial watch. And it wouldn't be a Chrono situation. My three little Seiko 5s are all beautiful but they're erratic, especially my SNKK87. She is a little diva, and keeps perfect time while on the wrist, but will pout and sulk when taken off, and will run down in about five hours. And if something in Japan was not to her liking, she might run down sooner than that. No, it would have to be my big Seiko Neo-Classic Quartz, model SGEH49P2. Elegant black dial, sapphire, 100M, super accurate 7N42 quartz movement, all for $95.

With that problem solved, now I would need a suit. I retired in 2015, but fortunately I still have one. I have 32 watches and one suit. That ratio seems about right. So back to the transportation problem. There was no way my Hyundai could make it to Japan. But this is a fiction story. So anything can happen. I had heard that Japan had these super fast bullet trains. Maybe I could catch one of those. So I put on my suit and my Seiko and went out by my mailbox to wait for one to come by. When it stopped outside my house I got on, and eighteen minutes later I was in Japan.

The Board meeting was to take place at the Shinshu Watch Studio in the center region of Japan. Its beautiful blue lakes and rugged mountains were inspired by the dials of various Grand Seiko watches. I noticed that I was not on the schedule to speak, but figured that the Japanese, being an accommodating people, would let me say my piece anyway if I looked official and pretended to know what I was doing. I don't speak Japanese but they all speak English, so that would be no problem.

Sidebar Joke:

Q) What do you call somebody who can speak two languages? A) Bilingual.

Q) What do you call someone who can speak only one language? A) American.

I saw that there was no one on stage, and that all the executives had almost finished their dinners, so I got up there and began to speak. I said I was there to tell about all our concerns from the Official WatchCrunch Survey, and a respectful hush came over the crowd. I spoke of the obvious problems like regulation, quality control, sapphire and bracelets, to deeper issues like too many product lines and wider distribution of JDM models, and spoke passionately about my own personal desires like solar mecha-quartz and the Seiko Edible, the world's first watch for Watch Collectors consumed with (false) guilt that their hobby is taking food from their children's mouths. With its black licorice dial, gummy straps, and pure sugar crystal, you just feed this to your kids if you think you have bought too many watches and they now have to go hungry.

And then I was finished, and there was a dead silence. The only sound to be heard was the ticking of a Timex Weekender on some traitor's wrist. He was promptly escorted out. I knew what the silence meant. My words had resonated with them so deeply that they could not move or speak. I'd seen it in movies dozens of times. Then one person would start to applaud, then several, and then the whole room would take it up in a glorious swell of love and appreciation for what I'd said. I waited for that first small sound.

And then I heard it. The CEO stood up. At first I thought he was clearing his throat. But he was not. I listened intently. It started as a small . . . chuckling sound. Then it grew louder. And louder. He was almost doubled over now, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Observing their CEO and with all inhibition gone, the whole crowd now started to laugh uproariously too. It was complete pandemonium and hysteria, with the executives laughing out loud and fist pumping each other and dancing on tables and throwing their little Japanese wives high in the air.

It took quite a while for things to quiet down, and then they all surrounded me and shook my hand, and said that the stand up comedy by the American guy was the best entertainment they'd ever had at a board meeting. They were admiring my $95 Seiko like they'd never seen a watch before. And they couldn't decide which was funniest - sapphire, quality control or too many models. But they seemed genuinely excited about producing the Seiko Edible, although they wanted to call it the WatchCrunch. I told them the name was already taken.

The Bullet Train took me home, where I had to admit that this trip had gone no better than my imaginary trip to the watch company in France. Good thing none of this stuff is real, although I'm not completely sure that it's not.