The one bicycle

A neighbourhood ironing shop usually has one young man on a bicycle, and everything in the place moves at his speed.

The shirts are pressed within the hour. Then they wait in bags by the door until he is back from the far end of the district. However quick the iron, the day can only go as fast as one bicycle.

Every way of working has a point like that. Something is always the narrowest part, and everything behind it queues.

The owner can treat it as an embarrassment. He takes every order, promises every customer the afternoon, and spends the evening apologising for shirts that turn up late. Or he hires a second rider and finds that the narrow point has simply moved, to the iron, or the counter, or himself.

Or he can build around it. Two rounds a day, one at noon and one at seven, the same streets in the same order. The bags are packed by building, so nothing sits by the door that need not. Customers learn that shirts come at seven, and they plan the evening before an interview around it.

The limit has not gone anywhere. It has become the shape of the service, and the shape is what people come to trust. Everyone in those buildings knows exactly what to expect from that shop, which is more than most shops can say.

The narrow point was never the problem. Pretending it was not there was. The shops that last stop wishing theirs away and start arranging the day around it.