Knowing Where to Put It

[janbear]

Knowing Where to Put It

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all
things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30
years, he happily retired.

Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly
impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion
dollar machines.

They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work
but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer
who had solved so many of their problems in the past.

The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying
the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in
chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is
where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked
perfectly again.

The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his
service.

They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer
responded briefly:

"One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999"