A cruise line spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new highly efficient cruise ship. Everything tested fine and the ship was launched successfully, on budget, and on schedule.
On its maiden voyage, its engine failed. The brand new crew ran through their basic tests, searched manuals, but were unable to fix it themselves.
The ship’s owners tried one ‘professional’ after another but none of them could figure out how to fix the broken engine.
They brought in a local shipwright. He was an older man, had grown up on the docks, and had been fixing ships for as long as people could remember. He carried a small bag of tools with him, and when he arrived on board he immediately went to work.
He quietly inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.
Two of the ship’s owners quietly watched the man, hoping he would know what to do. But as time dragged on, they didn’t think it was looking good as they noticed the man quietly speaking to himself as item after item checked as “being ok”.
After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something on the side of the control panel, and instantly the engine lurched into life.
He carefully put his hammer away, the engine running properly.A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $50,000.
Stunned with the amount of money, the owners asked the shipwright to provide an itemized invoice.
The man responded with an invoice that read:
Tapping with a hammer – $2.00,Knowing where to tap – $49,998.00
Experience, and knowing where to direct that effort makes all the difference in the world.
You must be logged in to post a comment.