Ready when he said it would be

There is a watch repairer in a narrow lane of the Muttrah souq in Muscat. As far as anyone can tell, he is not the most skilled in the city. He is not the cheapest. His shop is small and nothing about it is memorable.

But when he says a watch will be ready on Tuesday evening, it is ready on Tuesday evening. Every time. People who have used him for years cannot remember an exception.

That turns out to be its own skill, separate from the others. A tradesman can be brilliant and unreliable. He can be rare, or a bargain, and still leave you checking your phone and wondering whether the trip will be wasted. Dependable is not a higher grade of good. It is a different quality altogether, and plenty of customers would choose it over brilliance.

It is also, oddly, one of the easiest to learn. Being extraordinary needs talent and some luck. Being dependable mostly needs promising a little less than you could do, and then doing it. No gift is required.

What makes it scarce is that it only counts if it lasts. One reliable week means nothing. The value arrives around the hundredth time, when a customer no longer thinks about it at all and simply hands over the watch.

So the whole skill is staying dependable. Which sounds like saying the same thing twice, and is.