Don't take it for granted.

Or for my Turkish friends, kendiliğinden olmalarını bekleme.

You get up in the night, it's dark, you flick the light switch and the room is illuminated. You probably took that for granted, but should you? Electric fish were reported in ancient Egyptian texts dating back to 2750 BC. The rapid progress in electrical science took place in the nineteenth century, when electricity moved on from being a scientific curiosity to something that was essential for modern life, including the second industrial revolution. So when you turn on the light, you can probably take the existence of electricity for granted but at the same time marvel at the human race's ingenuity in the application of electricity to life.

What you cannot take for granted is the generation and transmission of electricity. You know you can't take it for granted when the supply is lost from a fault or perhaps even industrial action. Your supply has been and continues to be dependent on billions of dollars of investment into research, design, development, manufacture and support of equipment and facilities, employing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. But the electrical supply industry is not a charity. You pay for it. So although you cannot take the electricity supply for granted, if you pay for the service you should expect to be supplied with electricity. Is your expectation any different from taking something for granted?! It's a moot point.

Recently there has been a furore over the sale of products marked as containing beef, found to have horsemeat. The CEO of Tesco, Philip Clarke, has apologised for Tesco's involvement in this scandal and promised a "root and branch" review of its supply chains. The reason he and others are concerned about the horsemeat scandal is because of 'reputational damage'. Reputation can be damaged when products or services fall short of expectations and companies live or die by customers' willingness to part with their money for products or services. So companies that take reputation for granted are living very dangerously. What's more, it can take years of hard work to establish a reputation but one foolish incident can destroy it overnight.

Reputation is part of what some businesses call Relationship Capital, arguing that it is an intangible asset, but just as powerful, if not stronger, than tangible assets such as cash in the bank. The Beatles summed it up in Can't Buy Me Love:

I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend
If it makes you feel all right
I'll get you anything my friend
If it makes you feel all right
Cause I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love

In other words, you can't buy happy relationships. In the same way as a shop's reputation takes years to establish so, for example, a marital relationship doesn't establish itself overnight but takes years of tender loving care to develop into something really meaningful. However, the relationship can be damaged, sometimes irreparably, by foolish incidents and should not, therefore, be taken for granted.

To conclude, it doesn't matter if we consider tangibles, like the supply of electricity, or intangibles, such as love, neither should be taken for granted. If we don't take things for granted, we become more appreciative of what we have.

This probably won't be my last blogpost, but don't take it for granted!