The upholsterer who says no

There is an upholsterer in Sharjah who turns away more work than most of his neighbours.

A customer arrives with a cheap sofa and asks for the cheapest fabric, stapled fast, finished by tomorrow. He will not do it. Not because the money is bad, but because in six months the seams will open, and the customer will tell people where it was done.

Another arrives wanting car seats re-covered. He could probably manage. He sends her to a workshop two streets away instead, with the owner's name written on a scrap of paper, because that workshop does nothing else and does it better.

It is tempting to see both as lost sales. They are the reason he has sales at all.

Saying yes feels like growth. It moves things forward and keeps the person in front of you happy for the next five minutes. But every yes means something only because of the noes behind it. The first kind of no sets a floor: I will not race to the cheapest version, I will not cut the corner that someone else will pay for later. The second kind sets a shape: this is what I am for, and I would rather be very good at it than vaguely available for everything.

Neither is comfortable to say to a customer standing at the counter. Both are a form of respect. They tell the customer the truth about what he can and cannot do, while being clear and proud about what he can.

The easy answer is to agree to everything and hope. The harder answer is to care enough about the work, and about the person asking, to say no out loud.