You broke my watch!

Yesterday I went to Tokyo to buy back the sunglasses I had lost on a snowboarding trip some time back. On the way to Omotesando, I dropped by the Swatch store in Shibuya to get my watch bracelet widened – something about drinking too much beer and putting on weight…

So I show my watch to the chick at the counter, tell her it’s too small and pull out the extra pieces I had brought with me. She takes the watch and starts disassembling the battery and checking the charge, showing me it’s good. I think “ok, this must be standard practice” and watch her as she struggles to put back the battery, scraping the shit out of it with a mini-screwdriver. Once it’s back together, she shows me the ticker that is not ticking any more and tells me proudly that it’s broken and she can’t repair it so I should buy a new one…

my new watch

WTF? I start telling her that she fucked up, it was moving before, she broke it. After making a big ruckus, the store manager comes out and I have to explain again with my broken japanese. The girl is almost crying, the guy finally understand what happened and start apologizing profusely. Apparently, the chick didn’t unserstand what I had asked her and thought I came because something was already wrong with the watch.

He ended up calling all the Swatch stores in Tokyo to find me the same watch, but since it would take at least a week to get there, I finally chose a new one on the spot and left with it for free with all the staff bowing and seeing me out with a few dozen 申し訳ございません.

4 thoughts on “You broke my watch!”

  1. Hahahha, that’s a good one.
    Glad you ended up having fair compensation. I am sure your broken Japanese has something to do with it.
    Honestly, didn’t you just hand your watch over with the extra piece for the bracelet without a word???

  2. @nyuudo – well, she shouldn’t have broken my watch in the first place, へたくそ

    @Ali – nope, I don’t do that anymore, I might have mumbled a bit though… :D

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