Being in the room is not a skill

In a small framing shop in Doha, the owner is very good at one thing. He can look at a print, a certificate or a child's drawing and know at once which moulding, which mount and which glass will make it look as if it always belonged on a wall.

Everything else in the shop is done by whoever happens to be nearby.

His son writes the descriptions on the shop's page, because he is the one with the phone. His wife sets the prices, because she keeps the receipt book. The nephew who helps at weekends deals with the customer whose frame arrived scratched, because he was at the counter when she walked in.

None of them chose those jobs. The jobs landed on them because of where they were standing.

This is how most small businesses run, and most families. Whoever holds the key does the work behind the door. It feels efficient. It usually is not.

Writing words that make a stranger want to visit is a skill. Pricing is a skill. Calming an upset customer so that she comes back next month is a skill. Each of them can be learnt, and each of them is learnt by people who practise it on purpose, not by people who simply happen to be in the room when it needs doing.

So there is a useful question to ask about every task in the shop. Is this a skill? If it is, then either someone here decides to get properly good at it, or it goes to a person who already has.

Being close to a job feels like being qualified for it. The two have very little to do with each other.