This old timer in a Chicago high rise told me something I still think about

I was a new guy, maybe six months in, working a call on a finicky door operator in a 70s office building. This building engineer, Frank, had been there since it opened. He watched me struggle for a bit, then just said, 'Kid, you're looking at the wires, not the door.' He made me step back and watch the door close for five full cycles. On the third one, I saw it: a tiny wobble in the hanger just before the lock tried to set. The problem wasn't electrical at all, it was a worn roller. He said his first boss told him the same thing forty years ago. 'The machine will tell you what's wrong if you watch it work.' I still stop and just watch the car run before I touch anything. Has anyone else had a simple piece of advice that totally changed how you approach a call?

2 comments

2 Comments

burns.richard1mo ago

Honestly used to be all about the manual and the diagnostic codes (you know, the book-smart approach). A senior tech saw me doing that and just said, "Is it making a noise it shouldn't, or not making a noise it should?" Now I always just listen to the thing first, like really listen, before I even open the laptop. That one question flipped a switch.

gray_roberts1mo ago

My dad was a mechanic and he had the same rule. He'd make me sit on a milk crate and just stare at a car for ten minutes before I was allowed to pick up a wrench. I hated it then, but now I do it with lesson plans. I'll just read the thing out loud to an empty room and half the time I hear the part that doesn't make any sense.