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Posted (edited)

Except Breitling didn't treat us like that when we bought our B-1s a decade ago...IIRC, five months from order to delivery...just sayin'

Hope it works out for y'all.

Edit: spelled "y'all" wrong...can't be compared to an A&M grad...

Edited by Learjetter
Posted

We're going on month 15 with breitling...management must have changed over the last decade. Europeans don't do anything in a timely manner so it seems.

Posted

Europeans don't do anything in a timely manner.

Correct.

For example, check this out...

https://world.time.com/2013/02/21/ceo-of-u-s-tire-company-gets-into-fight-with-all-of-france/

What’s French for “cat fight”? Ask American businessman and would-be industrial investor Maurice Taylor, who has provoked la France entière by claiming the “French workforce gets paid high wages but works only three hours.” In doing so, Taylor mockingly dismissed French government invitations to invest in a struggling tire factory in northern France.

“How stupid do you think we are?” Taylor asked in a letter sent to French Industrial Renewal Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who had asked the CEO of the Titan International tire company to invest in a money-losing Goodyear plant in Amiens. The notoriously hard-edged Taylor maintained the factory suffers from the same lame work ethic, coddled labor force, union domination and protection of feckless politicians he seems to see plaguing the wider French economy.

“You can keep the so-called workers. Titan has no interest in the Amiens North factory,” Taylor said in a double-barrel missive revealed by the French media Feb. 20. “Titan is going to buy a Chinese tire company or an Indian one, pay less than one euro per hour and ship all the tires France needs.”

(MORE: Goodyear’s French Nightmare)

That’s exactly the kind of business ethos assured to enervate Montebourg—a crusading leftist cabinet member who has repeatedly locked horns with bosses over job cuts. Last year Montebourg threatened to nationalize French units of Arcelor Mittal over what he called the steel giant’s “lying” by ignoring promises not to close plants. In replying to Taylor’s broadside, Montebourg scorned the CEO’s “extremist insults” of France as a reflection his “perfect ignorance of what our country is.”

Perhaps, but Taylor’s tarring of the Amiens operation succeeded to obtain what may have been a broader objective: using it as a broad brush to tarnish a purportedly pampered, work-averse French society—one the 1996 GOP primary candidate doesn’t seem too fond of. Indeed, in deriding the Goodyear workforce that gets paid high wages but…get(s) one hour for breaks and lunch, talk for three and work for three,” Taylor seemed to be shaking a fist at the entire French socioeconomic model and protective welfare state that American ultra-conservatives hate as iconic of enormous government and sky-high taxes. Given that vibe, it was little wonder that French politicians from both left and right joined pundits denouncing Taylor’s attack. Even Laurence Parisot—head of France’s main pro-business advocacy organization—objected to the American’s comments as “a shocking generalization” and “unacceptable.”

Those weren’t the only emotions surging. The French daily le Parisien actually sounded hurt Feb. 21 when it ran a front-page headline declaring, “No, the French Aren’t Lazy!” Reports elsewhere revealed that Goodyear employees working reduced hours in Amiens do so at management’s requests in response to slumping activity. Harder-hitting French commentators took aim at the avowedly right-wing Taylor, and poking fun at his ferocity-inspired nickname, “the Grizz”—a bearish association he shares with Sarah Palin. True to that company, left-leaning daily Libération described Taylor as “an extremist used to provocations.” In other words, exactly the kind of American businessperson France and most Europe wants nothing to do with.

(MORE: Too European To Fail: New EU Banking Safety Net Takes Shape)

So who wins the battle of the trans-Atlantic stereotype bashing? Perhaps Taylor, judging from the sense of hurt in France. But numbers suggest the French don’t come off too badly when Taylor’s Gallic stereotypes are viewed from other angles.

Statistics compiled by international organizations routinely find French workers among the most productive in the world in terms of GDP per hours worked. Numbers from 2011 rank, French employees seventh globally in per hour productivity—three places (but less than 3% behind) the U.S. workforce. French labor productivity per hour actually exceeds that of Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. when calculated in adjusted euro figures. That reputation-defying efficiency has also helped make France the ninth-largest recipient of foreign direct investment in 2011 with $40.9 billion—third among European Union members. Not bad for a place where everybody supposedly takes lunch breaks and talks all day.

Yet rather than advancing what some critics say may be manipulated stats, Montebourg preferred to match Tayor blow for blow. “Can I remind you that Titan, the company you head is 20 times smaller than Michelin, the French technology leader with a global reach, and 35 times more profitable?” Montebourg repliedto Taylor’s letter. “That shows the extent to which Titan could have learned and gained enormously from a French base.”

Perhaps someone now may ask the Grizz what the French is for touché.

Read more: https://world.time.com/2013/02/21/ceo-of-u-s-tire-company-gets-into-fight-with-all-of-france/#ixzz2LpF2jCsK

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Well we finally got an answer back. The watches are about to enter production and we were told to expect delivery mid April....she said they would try for earlier but don't count on it......if anyone needs to update their credit card info PM me

Posted (edited)
Well we finally got an answer back. The watches are about to enter production and we were told to expect delivery mid April....she said they would try for earlier but don't count on it......if anyone needs to update their credit card info PM me

I received my finalized proof today from our group poc and were told engraving will begin this week.

Edited by herkbum
Posted

I received my finalized proof today from our group poc and were told engraving will begin this week.

wow, we got our final proof like a month ago, crazy how they work it

Posted

wow, we got our final proof like a month ago, crazy how they work it

We made a few changes/additions and it sounds like they wanted our final approval. My impression is we are GTG now.

Posted

Yeah same here, guy said today we are in production and expect them mid April........not holding my breath though

Posted

Tunes,

Thanks for sticking with this. I lack the patience to have organized this ordeal. Fingers crossed.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

got an email this past week asking for updated CC info for some people and they said they are almost ready to ship...going to call on monday and see when they are going to ship

Posted
got an email this past week asking for updated CC info for some people and they said they are almost ready to ship...going to call on monday and see when they are going to ship

Oddly enough, military people's billing info changes over the course of a year and a half.

Posted

Oddly enough, military people's billing info changes over the course of a year and a half.

no kidding, right? I sent you a pm

Posted

All CC's were submitted to the billing department on Thursday according to the lady at Swatch. Our watches are with them in NY and she said she is expecting them to ship to me sometime this week after the billing department clears everything.

Posted

Credit card got charged today.

Same here. Tunes, I have a new mailing adress for you before everything gets sent out. PM me for details. Thanks

Posted

Same here. Tunes, I have a new mailing adress for you before everything gets sent out. PM me for details. Thanks

is it the same one you gave me before? We have time because they send all the watches to me then i send them out.

saw my card was charged too....like 1k less than i expected, seems they didnt charge me yet for the extra strap...guess we will see how that turns out

Posted

is it the same one you gave me before? We have time because they send all the watches to me then i send them out.

My current address is in California, so if thats the one you have we're good. Thanks.

Posted

My current address is in California, so if thats the one you have we're good. Thanks.

sent you a PM back

Posted

tunes, thanks for taking this on. I know it has been a long process, but hopefully it will be ending soon. Thanks again for making this happen (and to the others that took care of things in the background when you were gone).

  • Upvote 1

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