More care than the job needed

In a narrow passage off a street in Downtown Cairo, a watch repairer changes a battery. That is the job. Open the back, swap the cell, close it, hand it over.

He does that, and then he keeps going. He wipes the glass. He tightens the strap pin that was about to give. He checks the time against his own clock and sets it to the minute. Nobody asked. Nobody would have complained if he had not.

There are three ways to do almost any job. The first is too little: the shortcut that leaves the thing broken, so the work was wasted and someone has to do it again. The second is just enough: the least work that avoids a complaint, which is what most systems are designed to produce. The battery is in. Sign here.

The third is more than most people would think necessary. It is care that nobody budgeted for. It is the detail the customer only notices a week later, when the strap does not fall off.

That third way is where anything worth talking about comes from. Nobody tells a friend about the man who changed a battery. They tell them about the man who fixed the thing they had not noticed was broken.

This is not the same as perfection. Perfection is a standard nobody can meet, which makes it a convenient excuse to never finish, never hand the work over, never be judged. Effort is the opposite. It is finished work with more care in it than it strictly needed.

Care is scarce. That is exactly why people notice it.