Even in the age of the Apple Watch and casual everything, your timepiece is sending certain signals to colleagues in the know
by Jacob Gallagher
AN OLD WORKPLACE adage says you shouldn’t wear a watch that’s fancier than your boss’s. For Tony Traina, 27, an associate lawyer in Chicago, however, it would have been difficult to find a more casual timepiece than the $399 Apple Watches his firm’s higher-ups tend to favor. He didn’t bother. As a watch-lover, he ignored protocol, showing up at work in a $1,500 mechanical watch by German brand Nomos Glashütte. But it barely went noticed.
In the past, one’s shoes, one’s suits and, yes, one’s watch spoke volumes about one’s place at work. Even though some believe status watches still send signals, today’s office has drastically evolved: CEOs wear sneakers and tell time with their smartphones; many people work remotely; wristwatches are less commonly remarked upon. “You’re more likely to get comments on a new iPhone” than a new watch, said Ryan Cecil Smith, 33, a designer at an animation studio in Los Angeles. In January, he purchased a Rolex and braced for snipes from his Apple Watch- and Casio-wearing co-workers, but so far no one has even acknowledged the pricey timepiece.
Often, wrist real estate that once held introductory-level luxury timepieces like Tag Heuers is occupied by smartwatches—which themselves quietly telegraph modernity, youth, humility, tech-smarts. Most of Matthew Marcus’s millennial co-workers at NCC Media, a TV-advertising sales company in Bethesda, Md., wear Apple Watches. “They kind of treat it as an extension of their phone,” said Mr. Marcus, 30, who is an outlier with his no-texting, no-emailing Grand Seiko watch.
Fans of status watches, however, still subscribe to the view that their timepieces can skew impressions. Kevin Weinman, 34, a CFO for a luxury retail company in New York City, believes his 18-karat gold Rolex GMT Master II “creates a better perception of experience and authority,” that matches his executive title.
When Mr. Weinman was undergoing multiple interviews for a position at a startup, he swapped that flashier watch for quieter options including a vintage Rolex Datejust. “I was very conscious of not wearing extremely expensive watches during the interview process…I didn’t want to seem as if I was priced out of a competitive compensation package.”
Griffin Caprio, 39, a founder of a podcast production company in Chicago, similarly changes his watch depending on whom he is meeting with. If he’s facing a potential investor, he skips the eye-catching green Rolex. Instead he’ll wear a watch from “under the radar” brands like local Chicago brand Oak and Oscar or a Glashütte Original which is actually more expensive than his Rolex but “is not as known to as many people outside of the watch industry.” Mr. Traina, the lawyer in Chicago, speculated that, at his firm, people don’t wear “flashy” watches in front of clients “for fear of them wondering where all of the money they’re spending is going.”
But there is more-objective evidence that status watches can cause waves. Mr. Caprio once worked as an engineer at software and technology companies, where he discovered that curious co-workers were googling his watches and learning that they went for five figures. “You almost kind of want to hide a watch a little bit,” said Mr. Caprio, who felt his colleagues looked down on watch collecting as a “stupid” way to spend money.
The idea that a watch reflects one’s place in the hierarchy definitely persists in more traditional workplaces. Myles Fennon, 40, a commercial real-estate broker in Manhattan, noted there are certain watches, including a ceramic Rolex Daytona and an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, that his co-workers buy when they’re thinking, “I just made a lot of money, I’m going to go light some of it on fire.” He prefers more-discreet watches “a couple layers deeper” than the common Rolex, like a modern Tudor Blackbay stainless-steel sports watch. He can recall a recent deal with three other brokers who all wore various Daytonas (which can retail for $10,000 and up): “On the elevator ride down I was like, ‘Sorry I didn’t get the memo that it was Daytona day.’”
