• Hot Saucerman
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    1 year ago

    The Engineers Dilemma:

    Once you get off your butt to go see what the problem is, the problem will mysteriously solve itself for the time being.

    Source: Worked in local television News Production. We would regularly call on the engineers for the problem to fucking resolve itself by the time they showed up. Always made me feel real stupid.

    • ChapolinColoradoNZ
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      211 year ago

      Was an on/off service technician/engineer for the last 20 years and can confirm. Many times I’d get a fault call just to arrive, pull out my screw driver and the issue simply resolves itself. It’s as if it knows things are getting serious and it’s afraid to be taken apart.

      • Hot Saucerman
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        1 year ago

        It definitely has an air of “the misbehaving kids realized the teacher is on the way back to the classroom.”

      • chaogomu
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        61 year ago

        I worked on air traffic control radios, about a third of the time the entry in the maintenance log was “could not duplicate problem”.

        The fun entries were “adjusted relays with screwdriver”. Now, for those who don’t know, relays generally don’t have a screw adjustment, but if you tap on the outside casing, they often unstick.

          • chaogomu
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            61 year ago

            The true key to percussive maintenance, knowing where to hit and how hard.

            I’ve seen people try to replicate good percussive maintenance and fail due to not knowing where and how hard to hit things. Those were expensive mistakes.

    • Rhaedas
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      41 year ago

      I use one of these solutions at work often. Either going to see if I can resolve the issue someone else is having and it magically starts working when I get there, or if not, I cycle things and 99% of the time that fixes it. For the rest…a blunt object might work.