The watch that came back scratched

A watch comes back from a repair stall in Agouza with a new battery and a fine scratch across the glass that was not there before. The man behind the counter has two possible answers.

He can turn it over in the light, say the glass was already weak, and suggest the scratch was probably always there. He might even be right.

Or he can look at it, set it down between the two of you, and say that this one is his. He will replace the glass, and he would like the chance to fix the next thing you bring.

The second answer costs him more on the day. It is also the one that keeps the customer, and the one people repeat when a neighbour asks where to take a watch.

What interests me is that the second answer is not a temperament. A few people seem to arrive with it. Most learn it, often from watching someone they admired do it once, and then deciding to become that kind of person. It is practised, like punctuality.

And it is almost never written down. CVs list languages, software, years, titles. Not one of them says: when something goes wrong near me, I put my hand up.

Yet that is the first thing I would want to know about a doctor, a builder, a business partner, or anyone I am about to rely on. Most places are careful about who gets authority. Respect is handed out far more freely, and it goes, almost without fail, to the person willing to say the problem belongs to them.