I rarely communicate by text, I`ve never got into what I call the tittle tattle text culture sending pointless messages back and forth, but what really puts me off is the ambiguity and scope for misunderstandings, it's a very limited form of communication for anything important and whenever I experience mix-ups it's usually a result of misunderstood text messages.

Here's a watch-related example: Last December I serviced a 60s gold Longines that belongs to a friend's father, a straightforward job that didn`t pose any problems. Looked at my phone this afternoon and saw a text message from him telling me the winder has fallen out of his dad's watch and will I fix it. I assumed he was referring to the gold Longines so I dug out my copy of the job sheet to refresh my memory, movement is a Longines 370 which is a square movement fitted to a round case in this instance. Removing the stem requires a screw fitted to the setting lever to be loosened so there's scope for it to come undone if it isn`t tightened correctly, an easy mistake to make when refitting and removing a stem several times to fit a new crown and trim the stem length. I`m thinking this has happened and it's down to me not having tightened the thing correctly, so after mentally beating myself with a stick I phoned him to discuss it.

Turns out his text was referring to a different watch, a Rotary that his dad wears regularly, had he phoned me initially and had a conversation I`m 100% certain this would've come to light!