Wolfgang Maehr

That spending CHF 100 (approx. EUR 65) a day is no art in Zurich – however spending less should actually be considered so – is no news at least for me. As soon as I enter the city to “do business” by buying some things, eating something or paying some bill or whatever, I need to withdraw that amount and at the end of the day all of it is gone. After the first surprise, the second shock, the third recalculation of the four items purchased, the enlightenment comes as step four only to be followed by regret as five. Going for Christmas shopping with bigW of course is a tough challenge for my purse (and an intense experience for body and soul) and having all presents already laying at home is crucial for avoiding bigger expenses.

So this time I spent three days (and still one more to go) there withdrawing CHF 100 on each day. Even though I did a great job not buying more or less anything (except of one barret for myself) the money is mostly gone. I have no clue how. And since my discussions with Yenny about what is expensive and what isn’t and about how much money one should spend and about why I needed all my salary in November I thought of explaining the Zurich way with a short story about this year’s Christmas shopping ralley.

Since two years now I have been looking for a wristwatch. I had grown up with watches and always liked them (well, proximity to Switzerland might have an influence on that). Years ago I got my first one which was an analog Quartz no-name watch, followed by a set of digital ones. The more prominent ones are my granddad’s that would play “Jingle Bells” and “Happy and seven other alarm tunes for each day and the multi-functional metal and digital Casio that unfortunately died far too early. All early watches were metal and while rather small they still looked big on my slim wrist. Then they were followed by a bigger sport watch (we enter the time of G-Shock’s, which I actually never owned; god bless) and one Polar sports watch with pulse monitor. The Polar watch is still used when running, but otherwise I am watch-free since around four years when I felt caught by time. I was always late and felt stressed and just felt like watches were more of obstacles than of helpful tools. Since then I just rely on my mobile for timing and the first two months I actually was on time, but by now my feeling for time became so good that estimating the correct time is usually a matter of 15 minutes precision and I got used to the be again late as ever. Since around two years I have similar feelings about my mobile phone, and abolishing that feeling by acquiring a watch seems a good choice for me. So far the background – sorry the set-up was not crucial but a nice thing to write anyways, but now the real story.

So I am looking for a wristwatch. Of course being the perfectionist I am not any watch is fine. I started looking two years ago for a model with following characteristics: Swiss (of course, what else?), aluminum or titan (for the luxury), chronometer (for the sportiness), metal strap (for the smell). At that time I was considering to get a nice top of the range Swatch but I decided not to take the golfer’s model – a pretty nice one – since I just was not totally in love with it. Price range at that time was CHF 150 which I regarded as high for a present to myself. A year later I realised that I wanted something with more style and automatic or solar (for the carefreeness). The acceptable price was raised to CHF 250 and I even considered buying something else like Citizen or so. Still no deal. This year, being in Zurich again I again checked the stores for a Swiss (now a definite), metal (no need for special alloy), elegant and sporty (maybe chronometer) and automatic (solar also needs a battery change all 5 years). Of course I by now realised that this will cost more and so I raised the cap to CHF 400. I even found an OK model for that price but it was not my style, but instead bigW’s and so he is now a proud owner of a new Tissot. For me the searching did not yield any results.
The last visit to a watch started a quarter before closing time and I approached the lady with my standard description, she first showed me the standard models. As I then still was dissatisfied, she went off to fetch some more models “Maybe try a Longines.” and returned after a short while. Smoothly picking up one model, she wraps it around my wrist and asks “Sir, doesn’t this one fit you perfectly?” me mostly puzzled by her over-smooth movement hearing the red alarm in the back of my head answers “Well, yes looks kinda nice.” Actually I hadn’t really looked at the watch because here movement distracted me too much. “Of course this one is a slight bit more expensive than what you planned, but don#t you like it?” I don’t think that I said anything clear or grammatically correct after that anymore, mostly willing to see the price tag. The watch was great, true, it really was MY watch – a match made in heaven. But then I saw the tag saying CHF 2700. Well, just “a slight bit more expensive”? Right, factor 7 is not too bad, isn’t it? The next few minutes I cannot recall – I was in shock. I guess I returned it and she walked off to fetch something else, a bit more affordable. So she returned with another less-known pilot wtach from Basel which she claimed to be “much more affordable and suitable to my price cap”. The thing was ugly, but again it would have been CHF 1600 for that one and I againg had to reject it, not only because it still was four times the planned amount. And she called it “more affordable and duitable to my price cap”. Obviously she was not joking because after a brief attempt to convince me that a good watch is important for travelling she recommended me to get a Swatch. Pfffft.

Honestly speaking, if I had a normal Zurich income, this watch would have been around 1/2 to 1/3 of one month’s salary and I probably would have gone for the nice Longines since it is quality and a perfect match – all I had looked for. But the worst thing were her remarks of that amount of money just being peanuts. IMHO CHF 400 is already more than a lot for a present to myself, a luxury item – even if I’ll keep it for the rest of my days. But her claiming that it is “just a bit more” than that is just a great example for the mindset that hovers over Zurich (and Geneva afaik). I guess I’ll have a look at the stores in Olso, which cannot really be more expensive. ;)