Froma Harrop, syndicated columnist

The CEO of British car company once complained in my earshot that his fancy jeweled Swiss watch always seemed to run a little behind. No one could fix it. And so, when he met the executive of a Swiss watch company at a conference in Geneva, he asked for advice. “It’s always five minutes late,” he told him. “What should I do?”

To which the watch executive snootily responded, “If you want a watch that tells the exact time, get a Swatch.”

That conversation helps explain the current lust for valuable antique watches — and among young people whose daily schedules are timed to the millisecond. They know that the greatest luxury these days is time, so a timepiece that speaks of not having to punch in a clock is a status symbol.

Of course, we all need backup timepieces that don’t play fast and loose with the minutes. You wouldn’t want to subject yourself to mockery by that wind-up heirloom: “Did you miss that 10:05 train to Chicago? That was me.”

No, we need a cellphone that buzzes at exactly 7:35 a.m. so we know that we must be out the door in 10 minutes for an 8:30 meeting. And as long as the phone is in our pocket, the folks at the latte shop can’t see our chains.

How nice it would be to live in approximate time, to make one’s hour of arrival whenever one arrives. Who wouldn’t like to play the lady, gentleman or nonbinary individual whose day consists of leisure, cultural pursuits and social activities?

Ads for the new luxury watches show a precious chronometer resting on a master-of-the-universe wrist. The watch may be new and set to the second, but it hearkens back to the era of bespoke timekeeping.

To better serve this market, Rolex just bought Bucherer, a fancy Swiss-based retailer that sells its own watches and other jewelry. According to Bloomberg, the deal would give Rolex enhanced access to Bucherer’s customers. Bucherer is the sort of place that, among other services, provides information on the provenance of antique watches.

Rolex’s most popular new models, such as the Daytona or Submariner dive watch, are in such demand that customers at authorized dealers are put on waiting lists that can last months or years. The cheapest Rolex costs over $5,000, but the Submariner can easily exceed $40,000.

My intention here isn’t to blow more hot air around a pricey status symbol — not that a gorgeous piece of jewelry is to be looked at askance. It is to admire the survival of possessions that were beloved despite and possibly for their imperfections.

Nowadays, you can program an Apple Watch to tell the wrong time. You might want it permanently set five minutes ahead. For generations people have done that on their Timex, to trick themselves into not being late for something. One supposes that this feature also enables one to set a watch five minutes behind, so you can pretend to be the car executive with a high-class problem.

Steve Jobs’ successors at Apple know all the tricks.

And so does the Swiss watch industry as it seduces the world’s rich or simply upwardly mobile to shell out thousands for its finely crafted products.

Swatch, by the way, is also a Swiss company, and all its watches are made in Switzerland. Its website informs us that the name Swatch is not a contraction of “Swiss watch.” It actually stands for “second watch” — a colorful fun thing you wear when not sporting your Patek Philippe.

We assume that the fancy new luxury watches also tell exact time. But no one has to know.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.