BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
WOODBRIDGE — Fall back. Spring ahead. For Rob Astuni, that helpful reminder of which way to wind the clocks for daylight-saving time could well become his mantra.
Astuni has worked in the watch department at Fords Jewelers for the past year.
Six weeks ago, as some people were ransacking thrift shop bins looking for that perfect accessory for their Halloween costumes, Astuni began the time-honored tradition of setting back over 1,000 watches in the Fords jewelry store on New Brunswick Avenue, in Fords.
“It was my first day last year,” Astuni said on All Hallow’s Eve. “My fingers were numb.”
Astuni and his co-worker Cathy Conroy say they reset about 200 watches at a clip, which they accomplish whenever business is slow.
A New Brunswick Avenue mainstay for over 30 years, the jewelry store’s slow times are not always dependable, which is why they begin six weeks early, store manager Albert Dahl said.
“We do it while the store’s open — whenever it’s quiet or whenever there’s downtime,” he said. “There’s no set amount we do each day. It gives us a chance to go over the watches, which is a good quality-control issue.”
Going over the watches today is a little bit different for Dahl than it was 30 years ago, when he joined Fords Jewelry Store owner Barry Berman.
“We had three or four different brands back then,” he said.
Now most of the store’s jewel cases are occupied by over 40 brands of watches — from Movado to Swiss Army watches, Baume Mercier to TAG Heur — they all have to be reset by Astuni and Conroy before daylight-saving time ends.
“We do it one brand at a time,” Dahl said. “It’s easier to tell where you stopped.”
Men’s sports watches are the store’s biggest seller. And setting back a watch is more complicated than it used to be, he said.
“Some have multifunctions and alarms,” Dahl said. “All the functions have to be reset,” he said.
“We don’t just set it, we kind of spend a minute or so on it,” Conroy said.
There are some watches in the store that do not need resetting, Dahl said.