Swatch has a service center at Wheelock Place and if you have one of the 17 or so watch brands they carry, you would have to go there to get your watch serviced when the need arises.
I took the picture above surreptitiously using my BlackBerry.
The place never fails to amuse me whenever I am there.
The first thing that hits you when you’re there is the loud receptionist with the strange accent – obviously a woman who enjoys what little power she has to lord over people.
Should have been a security guard or a parking attendant.
Pity her husband.
Or her kids.
Next the uniforms of the service staff borders on comical.
Wait, there’s more.
When you send your watch for a battery change or for servicing you get a queue number and a form to complete.
On that form they not only want your full name and address and contact numbers and email, they also want your passport number.
What the hell for I wonder?
“For Security purposes” – it is stated clearly on the form. “S” in upper case.
I swear nowhere in the world will you come across a place requesting for all those details when you send your watch in for servicing.
In fact, I’m willing to bet my last cent on it.
For security purposes my foot.
Yeah, in case I send in an Omega which is actually a miniature nuclear bomb in disguise – a bomb which will blow up the entire building after I’ve made good my escape.
Ludicrous.
Why do they need all those details about me?
Maybe I should give them my grandmother’s height too.
Or my mother’s maiden name.
Or the brand of cigars I’ve been smoking for the past few days.
Or even my shoe size.
Also the whole place looks like some sci-fi outfit, and before one of the three service staff (all women past their prime) submits your watch to the lab-like looking room with the big glass behind them (complete with men in white lab coats looking like Nobel-prize scientists) they will scrutinize it using a magnifying glass – as if they know anything about horology.
They also always tell you some really ridiculous shit – like it takes three months to order a spare part, two months for this to arrive, three months for that to arrive, etc.
What the heck are these people trying to prove I wonder?
I just want to service my watch, I don’t need to be put through some frigging freak show or be a bit player in some sci-fi comedy.
And the best part is? It is a service center right? But they are only open from Mondays to Fridays from 8:30am to 5:30pm.
So if you wish to service your watch, you would have to take time off work to do it.
Some service huh?
Don’t these clowns know that customer service is about the customer?