By Derek Smith
Many shop walls are adorned with posters and calendars containing the wisdom of Murphy’s Laws. Dating to the late 1800s, these humorous truisms accurately speak to the sensibilities of the working man.
The most famous of Murphy’s Laws – and the one that pretty much lays the foundation for the others – is, “If anything can go wrong, it will.” Whether you’re on the distribution side, service side, or both, you know this to be true. My favorite is a variation on this theme, “If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.”
This month’s annual “Tales from the Shop” cover story helps prove the inevitability of these laws. We have again collected stories from maintenance managers and supplier service representatives that highlight what can happen when repairs and maintenance go, sometimes humorously, awry.
In the guest column on page 52, TPS’ Distributor of the Year Marc Karon also shares a few of his favorite anecdotes collected through the years.
These stories, while providing a look at just how crazy the aftermarket can be at times, reveal best practices while serving as cautionary tales for even the most seasoned technician. It’s an unpredictable business, and the most anyone can do is their best, which still sometimes doesn’t guarantee success.
We could not fit all the stories we collected in the article this month, which is unfortunate, because there were more gems. But as this is an annual feature, we will save those stories for next October.
One story, from Jim Boyd, manager of fleet technical services with Southeastern Freight Lines, bears telling here. It’s not particularly frightening, nor does it reveal how a certain service task could have been done better. But it does sum up the pressures technicians are constantly under and how their sheer will and determination often are thrown into every task, regardless of the obstacles.
During a pre-trip inspection, a trailer is found to have a leaky wheel seal. It must be fixed before it leaves the terminal, and quickly so the driver can make his delivery.
It’s not a complex job, and the technician gets to work. He goes by the book, step by step: release the brakes, drain the lubricant, take the lug nuts off and attach the wheel dolly to remove the wheel. He moves fast, not missing a beat, when he hits a wall. He fights and struggles to get the wheel off, but he’s losing the battle.
The driver looks over the technician’s shoulder, impatient and tapping his foot. The dispatcher asks, “When are you going to cut that trailer loose?” The technician, try as he might, can not get the wheel to budge.
A fellow technician walks by, and seeing his co-worker’s plight, asks, “Don’t you think that would be easier if you used a jack and lifted the axle up off the ground?”
Sometimes it’s the simple things; sometimes the answers are more elusive. Here, a technician in his haste to get the job done and the unit on the road checked all the boxes but one. However, he wasn’t giving up, and that, to me, more than makes up for his oversight.
Murphy’s Laws will continue to reveal their inevitable truths, but as long as technicians tackle every job with ingenuity and enthusiasm, they help push the odds in their favor. And every little bit helps.
