A Gold Rolex?

What time is it?

We were out to dinner the other night, and we couldn’t help but overhear the conversation at the table next to us. Three late-teen prep school boys were having dinner with the grandparents of one of them. The boys were all shiny and new looking with that mushroom shaped haircut all boys seem to have right now. The grandparents were obviously well-heeled, with a mannered disdain that comes from years of practice.

“Once a CEO, always a CEO, even after the company is gone,” my mother once said. Not all, of course, but enough to illustrate the point. Self-importance is so important, don’tcha think....?

So, here are these grandparents out with impressionable young men – an opportunity for healthy, interesting, valuable conversation at a time when the next generation could learn so much about social interaction and the value of curiosity and asking questions and showing interest and taking it all in – and what does Granddad CEO choose to talk to the boys about? The importance of a gold Rolex. 

He actually took the time to show the boys how to subtly flash the gold from under his shirt cuff, because “then people will be impressed and treat you with the respect you deserve.”

And I’m thinking, if you need an expensive prop, and a cliché one at that, to garner respect, I guess you don’t have anything else, anything of value, to offer.

“Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.” 

— Hussein Nishah