I am regularly struck by psychogenic dysphonia (that is, so stunned I lose my voice), when a company in the watchmaking industry that gratefully receives a carton of the Journal Suisse d’Horlogerie JSH for its staff, visitors, directors and common areas turns me away, in the name of its supposedly clean image, with a flat refusal!
By Joël A. Grandjean, Editor-in-chief of JSH® Magazine & Swiss Watch Passport
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Joël A. Grandjean: “There is a hint of the absurd in this logic that eagerly calls on our printed pages while implying they would tarnish a reputation”
It is comical, yet these are often outfits well versed in annual reports, the very ones that include the obligatory paragraph on their “environmentally correct” ethics. Note that the same company, or brand, keeps flooding our newsroom with its press releases. There is a hint of the absurd in this systematic stance that calls on our pages, produced with passion, while implying they would tarnish a reputation. Seriously? The posture is purely ideological, and such reasoning collapses in the face of the logic of those billions of calories generated by the billions of useless photos that billions of individuals pile up in the servers of the global cloud. Including those of the very staff who work in such a model company and who, to one’s astonishment, head to the toilets with their connected phones.
A reasoning that collapses in the face of the logic of those billions of calories generated by the billions of useless photos that billions of individuals pile up in the servers of the global cloud”
Speaking of “comfort breaks“: once upon a time, at the head of Jean Singer & Cie, there was Joris Engisch, a Neuchâtel boss and heir to a family industry of 400 employees devoted to manufacturing dials for the most prestigious watches of Swiss watchmaking excellence. He had been publicly called out for introducing clocking-in before going to the toilet.
Joris Engisch was called out by TV for introducing clocking-in before going to the toilet“
TV invited me to debate it: they made a whole meal of it, dogmatic postures versus entrepreneurial pragmatism. Without hesitation, I had sent this daring boss a real letter, inviting him to exempt from clocking-in those of his employees who, on their way to these places of forced concentration, agreed to swap their mobile for a JSH. “Our journal, packed with knowledge transfer and reference dossiers, is almost skills acquisition, continuing education…“, I had written. “After all, it may be that a little paper could serve during these unavoidable, obligatory passages”!
Reading JSH in the toilet? “Our journal, packed with knowledge transfer and reference dossiers, is skills acquisition, continuing education…”
