I wish I knew or understood the following:
- Why a drain plug bolt, if dropped, always finds a drain pan full of oil, even if it has to ricochet off three pieces of metal framework to reach that drain pan.
- Why customers know exactly what’s wrong with a machine and how it should be fixed, but prefer to have a mechanic do it while they watch and offer advice.
- How machines figure out how to break down in the middle of a mudhole.
- Why grease zerks in driveshaft U-joints are always pointed the wrong direction when it’s time to grease them.
- Why an engineer would design a machine, so its drain plugs are directly over frame members, so that draining oil splatters everywhere.
- Why other machine operators think it’s funny to drive their machines past a repair site and repeatedly cover the mechanic and all the disassembled, exposed components with clouds of dust.
- Why jobsite managers think it will speed things up if they stop and ask every 30 minutes, “How long till it’s running?”
- How a machine knows the coldest, windiest hill on the jobsite to break down in winter.
- How a machine knows the most sun-blasted, wind-sheltered spot on the jobsite to break down in summer.
- Where engineers install the secret timers designed to cause machines to break down at 4:45 on Friday afternoons.
- The phone number and home address of any engineer that designs a machine to use a single 11/64-inch bolt or nut buried deep, deep within a machine. The kind of bolt it takes a half hour to crawl down and reach, accessible only if you stretch and reach your left arm as far as you can while pressing your face against a hot gearcase.
- Why grease guns never run out of grease close to the service truck.
- Why I don’t turn off my cellphone on weekends.
