Salaryman (1992)

Meg Pei's 1992 novel is narrated by Jun Shimada, a Japanese mid-level executive with the Yamamoto electronics corporation, the son of a noodle-shop cook and a famous poet who killed himself. Having chosen the security of the salaryman's life over his father's, Jun is posted with his wife and child to the company's American branch office, where his careful world comes apart. (Open Library)

Watches

Omega (unidentified model): Recalling his rise through the company, Jun lists the rewards: money in the bank, Yamamoto gadgets in the kitchen, better suits, and at his fifth-year anniversary an Omega watch and a boardroom lunch of prime ribs, asparagus and chocolate truffles for his whole starting group, with old Yamamoto leading the corporate anthem. When the president sits down beside him, Jun thanks him for the watch and the meal before Yamamoto raises the American posting. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: My fifth-year anniversary passed, and I was given an Omega watch and treated, along with the various other members of my starting group, to lunch in the boardroom. (Meg Pei, Salaryman, scan cataloged as Viking, 1992, p. 18; he thanks Yamamoto for the watch on p. 19 and the jacket copy names the narrator; Internet Archive scan OCR)