Who goes first in the queue

An upholsterer in Sharjah starts each morning with more work than the day can hold. Six sofas waiting. Two sets of dining chairs. A customer who has called three times about cushions promised for the end of the week.

Fabric, foam and price all matter, but his real job is choosing. Every hour he decides which piece gets his hands next, and over a year that decision shapes the workshop more than any other.

There are three easy ways to make it. Take whatever came in first. Take whatever is nearest the door. Take whatever is shouting loudest.

Each feels fair, or at least practical. None of them is a plan.

First come, first served sounds like a principle, and mostly it is a way of avoiding the choice. Answering the loudest customer is worse. It teaches everyone that calling three times is how things get done, and it quietly punishes the patient ones who trusted him.

The harder question is what he wants the workshop to stand for. If it is the place that takes on the difficult old armchair nobody else will touch, that chair goes first even though it arrived last. If it is the place that never misses a promised date, then the promise sets the order, not the noise.

Nobody else can make that call for him, and every small business faces the same queue each morning, whether it sells sofas, software or advice.

The order of the work looks like admin. Added up, it is the business.