Six Reasons You Should Wear a Watch

July 10, 2017  
|  9 Comments
Categories: Op-Eds

You should wear a watch. Cell phones as timepieces aren’t for people who do stuff. Dig in your pocket, pull out a phone and turn it on to check the time, and I’ll assume you can’t change a tire. Maybe you can…if you can find a YouTube video to show you how.

 

Dive watches are a great option.

1. Dive watches are tough, water proof, glow well enough to see at night, can have a day/date function and a second hand. All you need to know.

2. The dive timer is a heck of a tool. From timing how long you have been stuck alone in the woods at night with a corpse holding down a crime scene in the dark or how long you have been waiting for a wrecker to timing how long til you pick up pizza for the shift, once you know how to use it you’ll wonder how you ever did without.

 

3. Seiko makes quality dive watches that can be had from $100 to $30K. In fact, a $100 second hand Seiko SKX007 is so awesome Stormin’ Norman Swartzkoff wore one on one wrist and a Rolex on the other when he was kicking ass and taking over whole countries.

That said Resco, Rolex, Sinn, Casio,and Citizen also make kickass watches.

4. An automatic winding mechanical Seiko isn’t gonna die on you because a battery went dead. How many times have you had a watch croak a few months after you bought it because it sat ticking on the shelf for three years before you bought it. Not saying there aren’t good options in the kinetic (electric driven, charged by motion), or solar, just saying batteries die. When a mechanical watch goes bad it gets fast or slow and usually you notice well before it screws you over.

5. It’s analog. Ever notice nurses, medics and some doctors wear analog watches? There’s a reason for that. The idea is when you are taking a pulse (count the beats over fifteen seconds and multiply times four), reading a digital watch and counting at the same time are two tasks that utilize the same part of the brain, making it easier to make a mistake. Which can be bad.

Don’t think so? Ever try to remember a number or count money when your buddy thinks its funny to yell out random numbers? Yeah…me too. I use mine for drug testing (Rhomberg), a lot. Works like a charm.

6. Slap it on a bracelet, nato/zulu strap, or rubber band and add a compass (Suunto Clipper or PDW) and you have a tool that will help you master your world. Plus, you’ll look a little more like James Bond and a little less like the the hipster kid down the street who can’t change the tire on his Prius.

-Jake Bush

 

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Jake Bush

Jake Bush

About the Author

Jake is a LEO down Georgia-Florida way. Jake describes himself thusly: I’m a small town deputy sheriff. I’m not special forces, I’m not SWAT, I’m not metro with LAPD or a homicide detective with the NYPD. I’m basically a problem solver. Everyday I handle calls from the mundane car in the roadway, to the worst calls for service, and everything in between. What I write will be from this perspective because I have no other. I hope something I write helps you.” Jake has been a night-shifter for years, and a cop for over a decade and a half. Despite an uncanny resemblance to Peter Griffin (especially when he’s in his uniform shirt), we really like him. In fact, we count ourselves lucky to have him aboard.

9 Comments

  1. Patrick Isaac

    I saw the ad for the MTM Silencer watch black I was a security guard, Doorman, no military service just a buy from my wife we’ve been together 30 years so it was a buy of a lifetime because the money paid for it was silly money, but I had a run in with the Police one night and now I’m in a nursing home on my back , things get lost in a shuffle years go by till one day you find a black box with a heavy watch that won’t charge, so you email the company and hopefully it won’t cost as much to repair.

    Reply
  2. Frank

    Omega Speedmaster – went to the freaking moon

    Reply
  3. Pete

    I like tritum. Blue tritium ideally b/c it is not as bright, but still at a glance visible. That said, I like my stopwatches, countdown timers and alarms digital, so my work watches are digital. I would totally dig a combo type, but I’ve never found a combo with tritium, so… meh.

    That said, those clip on compasses are garbage. Other than the fact that, yes, they are in fact compasses, they suck. Get a Cammenga wrist compass, throw away the band, link in a couple zip ties and melt the ends, then slap that on your wrist band, you’ll thank me next time your doing any kind of limited vis movement. Just keep some electrical tape to cover that bright ass green trit when not in use.

    Reply
  4. Grump

    The Casio Mudmaster is too sexy for me. That’s why I like it.

    Reply
  5. Redell Walton

    For those that want a good bang for your buck dive watch, the Casio Diver can be found at Wally World for about $50. It’s rated to 100 meters and watch nerds give it a thumbs up. The styling is Rolex Submariner and it looks great on a NATO band. Well, it did, until Navy Son confiscated it. But at that price is doesn’t hurt as much as some of the stuff they’ve liberated.

    Reply
  6. OkieRim

    For daily when I was active duty, it was always some variation of a Casio. Since “retirement” I wear a Marathon SAR, nice, sturdy and keeps pretty accurate time.

    Reply
  7. C. Daniel

    Maybe the guy checking his phone isn’t a putz, maybe he’s a next level gearhead. The author would know this if he was.

    Example: I’ve done full frame-off restos on hot rods. I’ve rebuilt engines, automatic and manual transmissions, rearends, steering boxes, designed and fabbed custom suspension, and even rebuilt diesels. I spent 17 years repairing helicopters for a living, I do woodworking, welding, metal shaping and I shoot. I don’t wear a watch while doing any of those because it’s not safe (well, shooting with a watch isn’t unsafe it just annoys me when running a USPSA stage).

    But otherwise, I have two nice Citizens I wear.

    Reply
    • Larry

      Yeah, but it still takes multiple steps to see the time on your phone. It only takes one step, rotate your wrist, to see it on your watch.

      Reply
  8. strych9

    For daily wear I used to use a Citizen Eco Drive ProMaster AquaLand with a built in dive computer which was nice if you wanted to have a dive at the end of the day or, if as I did, you worked as a diver.

    Later I switched to a Bulova Precisionist dive watch. It actually had more timer features than I used.

    Recently my wife got me another Eco Drive Citizen ProMaster but this one, while water resistant to 200 meters has a built in compass and altimeter. I checked the compass against a pair of Suunto MC2- Gobal compasses and the compass built into the watch is spot on. The altimeter has a whack-ass readout but once you get used to reading it the damn thing is also spot on.

    Reply

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