We remember peaks and endings

Most “surprise and delight” programmes are surprise-free and barely delightful. They are purchasing exercises wearing a party hat. Somebody approves a tasteful object, orders five hundred and congratulates the brand on its humanity. Every customer receives the same bottle, the same card and the same synthetic sentence beginning with their first name. It costs money, photographs nicely and proves nobody was paying attention.

The door jamb is different. It was destined for a skip because, as timber, it was worthless. As the record of children growing up, it was irreplaceable. The estate agent understood the difference and dealt with the practical nuisance: permission, removal, storage, delivery. That nuisance is the whole bloody point. Thoughtfulness begins where the standard operating procedure runs out. A gesture selected from a catalogue says, “We have a gifting programme.” A splintered length of wood says, “I heard the thing you thought nobody else noticed.”

Businesses keep trying to industrialise this kind of attention because judgement makes tidy management nervous. One customer gets champagne; another gets a yoga mat; a third gets nothing because nothing would be appropriate. The spreadsheet looks inconsistent. Good. Human lives are inconsistent. Give staff a modest budget, permission to act and enough time to listen. Keep the governance for fraud and safety. Do not turn care into a menu of approved emotional SKUs. The work here was not choosing a premium gift. It was asking the new owner, finding a tool, taking the frame out without splitting it and putting the marked wood somewhere dry.