Low quality post warning. This time it’s very literally not financial advice.
A friend was recently in a predicament. He needed one more flight before the end of the year to qualify for Delta Diamond. He was either going to fly economy and not get it, or upgrade to first class and get it for the next year.
While the conversation was mostly about personal ethics, he said one thing at the end that caught me: “when I walk into a meeting with my suitcase with Delta Diamond bag tags, they take me more seriously. I’m a young guy and I need that.”
I’ve been turning this over in mind, trying to decide if that’s real, or if he more-so felt better about himself walking into rooms with an overt status symbol.
Twitter and Rolexes
This post went viral this week on “X” (lol):
Which spawned a bunch of other posts:
There was some slightly more meaningful criticism, like how the CEO of NVIDIA apparently doesn’t wear a watch.
But this to me rings of how Mark Cuban wears sweatpants to the airport. It’s a flex if you’re a billionaire already. You’re more likely a loser if you’re not a billionaire and you wear sweatpants to the airport.
The problem with advice like “buy a rolex” is its zero-sum nature. If everyone wore nice watches, they’d just become the entry fee, not a marker of success. So when a post like that goes viral, then people love to hate on it because it is gauche to talk about buying a watch just for status. Poor taste.
By the way, the author of the original tweet’s grandfather is worth $3.5 billion.
Unfortunate Truth
I hate status games. They’re mostly lame.
Unfortunately, it plays.
“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have” is status game advice. My only addendum is to not aim too high. Don’t dress like a CEO, but feel free to dress one or two levels above yourself.
This totally works.
Back in college, another friend told me a story. They played tennis with their friend and his rich dad. Then they went out to lunch. The dad picked a fancy place to eat. They didn’t have a reservation. The dad was wearing tennis shorts and a polo. Everyone else had suits.
He told the friend “don’t worry, if they know what they’re doing, they’ll seat us.” Turns out his watch was enough for the maitre d’ to overlook the lack of dress or reservation.
In short, status symbols work, but must be used sparingly. Being loud about it has the opposite effect than intended. Being subtle gets the job done.
