Tap
My faithful refrigerator started making this most irritating noise recently. It was this constant ‘whirr’ that was driving me and my wife up the wall. I prided myself as Mr Fixit and so tried to fix the problem myself. I touched and prodded, kicked and spanked but to no avail. The damned thing would for stop for a while and start back up just when I was in the middle of a movie.
I finally called it quits and called up the customer care center. They sent someone down promptly (a rarity around this part of the globe). The chap came in around evening, tool box and all and asked: wherisit? I pointed him to the kitchen. He opened the freezer to make the compressor kick in and the noise started. He pulled the refrigerator away from the wall, touched something behind it and viola! the pandemonium stopped.
He opened his bag, took out his receipt book and promptly made out a receipt for 100 bucks and handed it over to me.
I was about to ask: “What? 100 bucks for touching my fridge? You got to be kidding! “when I realized something and bit my tongue.
A giant ship engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure but how to fix the engine. Then they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was young. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched to life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed.
A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for ten thousand dollars.
"What?!" the owners exclaimed. "He hardly did anything!" So they wrote the old man a note saying, "Please send us an itemized bill."
The man sent a bill that read:
Tapping with a hammer………………….. $ 2.00
Knowing where to tap…………………… $ 9,998.00
There are two types of people in the software industry today: The ones that know where to tap and the ones that don’t. Which type are you?
Alex
