all they have to do is loosen a couple nuts and turn a couple of bolts.
Once upon a time, a big manufacturing company had a problem with one of their production machines. It was a big, complex apparatus and it was quite a challenge to pin down exactly what the problem was. The machine simply stopped working. Their in-house engineers tried tirelessly, but hours rolled into days, and days headed for weeks, and the machine was still down. They decided to hire the services of a renowned expert engineer.
The engineer came to the site and strolled into the machine room, observing carefully as he walked along. A few engineers from the company followed closely behind him, trying to see for themselves where the problem was. The expert engineer, with the wisdom that comes with plenty of white hair, walked carefully around the entire room, touching, pausing, feeling and thinking, now and then scratching some calculations and diagrams on the paper pad on his clipboard. After walking around for about 30 minutes, he took out a hammer and hit a particular spot on one of the cylindrical pipes. He then asked that the machine be switched on. It was, and the engineer struck the same place again with the hammer. As if by magic, the machine came online working perfectly.
All the engineers were surprised, but excited. At last the machine was up again. News went fast to the operations manager and the CEO, the expert engineer was indeed an expert, as he had solved a very complex problem that had bedeviled the whole company and help them ransom for too long. Their excitement however faded when the expert engineer sent them his bill for $10,000. The accounts-payable manager could not reconcile the bill with the story he had heard of how the problem was solved. Not to appear rude by denying the expert of his charges, the operations manager requested that the expert engineer break down his bill, so that the company could understand what they were paying for.
The expert engineer itemized his bill and sent it by return mail:
Tap machine with hammer: 2× @ $0.50___________$ 1.00
Knowing where to tap:_________________________$ 9,999.00
Total this invoice:_____________________________$10,000.00