Service is GOD

If SERVICE is GODLINESS, common wisdom may extrapolate that to say,
"SERVICE ENGINEER is GOD"
There are several things in common between the two, including that both are sought after fervently in times of distress and pain but remain forgotten otherwise.

Two years as a SERVICE engineer is all that is needed to realize this truth. This is a BIBLE that I have concocted for people in the noble profession of being a SERVICE ENGINEER.


10 commandments:.
1. Use the word Flux several times in your sentence.
2. If you don’t know whom to blame. Blame Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
3. Start complaining about bad network conditions as soon as you enter customer site.
4. If you don’t know what to say...Say SYSTEM INERTIA
5. Every SERVICE call is the most urgent call.
6. Always keep your return tickets OPEN.
7. Nobody reads Minutes of Meetings.
8. Always make sure to land at home on a Friday evening.
9. If nothing else works restart the system.
10.Always complain that the system environment is the most dusty that you have seen.

1. Use the word Flux several times in your sentence.

FLUX is a word invented by spiritually motivated scientists for the benefit of clueless SERVICE engineers who could not clear their GRE due to poor vocabulary. FLUX can be used with anything that you see at site. FLUX with motors, with TRANSFORMER, the INDUCTOR and so on ..Never fall into explaining to anybody what this golden word means. If you ever were to meet somebody villainous enough to ask you what it means, just wince your eyes and give him a look that says "YOU DONT KNOW WHAT FLUX MEANS?"..."GOD SAVE HIM”.
You can use FLUX as many times that you want. And make sure you hold your face straight when you use FLUX in your sentences. Any technical wizard at the customer's place will fall at your feet when you start using FLUX. FLUX is a single key for customers who are snobbish, stubborn, confused or intelligent.




2. If you don’t know whom to blame..Blame Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
If you cant blame the customer, the system environment, or anything concrete for your system failure. Step back, take a deep breath and look around for the nearest electronic device capable of emitting radiations. Let me clarify that the device need not actually emit any radiations. It should only be capable of doing so. And voila...you have the culprit ready ....E M I ..Electromagnetic Interference. You can get away with anything ..Just about anything with EMI, erroneous values read, poor feedback systems, bad output, blowing fuses, blowing PCBs, burning resistors ..just anything...Blame it on the EMI.
Make sure to find a remote evidence however before you blame. If you cannot find any electromagnetic emitting device , you can still rely on unscreened cables . If your screen cables are grounded ask the customer to get it ungrounded, and if it is not grounded, make sure the customer gets it grounded. "Poor earthing" is the only close competitor to EMI. Both these can be used at times of crisis. But trust me nothing can beat the EMI..Nothing at all.

3. Start complaining about bad network conditions as soon as you enter customer site.
This is a very safe and very important thing to do as you enter a customer site. This will come to your help later in the day when you are stuck with a problem that you cannot solve.
Just wince, shake your head and say the network here is real bad. No customer in his right senses will ask you to justify your statement, for he was always suspecting that his network was very bad. Besides he will be glad that somebody as knowledgeable as yourself feels the same about his network. Just speak a couple of lines on how poor the distribution system is in his particular state. Trust me nobody on earth likes his state distribution network.

4. If you dont know what to say...Say SYSTEM INERTIA
When you are stuck dumb by a customer query, and when you have lost all words of wisdom that you have to pour out...Just smile and say.."The answer is simple.. SYSTEM INERTIA".
This has two advantages.Firstly it gives you a lot of time to cook up some reserves of wisdom from inside..because the moment you say SYSTEM INERTIA, the customer loses focus and tries to regain himself from a quiverfull of arrows of wisdom. Secondly SYSTEM INERTIA by itself does not mean anything at all. It is the context that gives this phrase any meaning. That gives you ample freedom to eventually build up a context around your argument to suit your victory over the customer.

5. Every SERVICE call is the most urgent call.
If you ever receive a SERVICE call don’t commit the mistake of asking the customer whether you are needed urgently. Such a question does not serve any purpose because; there is no call, which is not the most urgent one. This applies to all calls including smelly resistors, oily surface of controllers, noisy inductors, chattering contactors, broken pen cases, missing parameters...and every other GOD forbidden event. They are all most urgent, and need your immediate attention. If you were hit by a comet, burned in a furnace and were struggling out of a deep state of COMA, the customer would still want you at his site to figure out why his white shoelaces were all turning brown. Don’t be beguiled by the most sorrowful voices requesting you to the site that very evening. Just go there if his guesthouse has a good swimming pool, 24 hours bar and a hundred topless female waitresses.

6. Always keep your return tickets OPEN.
The golden rule is "Never book a waitlisted forward flight ticket, and always keep your return tickets OPEN". Every visit that should take 2 days will at least last 20 days long. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to work for all the 20 days at site. You may need to work for 3 minutes and 20 seconds in total. But the customer loves the smell of your socks and wants you to stay with him for the rest of the time. The customer calls these waiting periods by several names like "Observation time”, "Performance test”, "Load trials" etc.
Waiting may also be caused by several unforeseen events that may have been perfectly foreseen by you. This may include "Waiting for components from factory", "Waiting for engineers from a different company", "Waiting for erection completion”,”Waiting for cabling completion”,” Waiting for meggering", "Waiting for cable testing", "Waiting for earthing" "Waiting for clearance from the other department" "Waiting for invention of the transformer”,” Waiting for Alexander Graham Bell". If your return tickets are not OPEN you had better cancel them immediately or you stand losing all your money for a no show. If your tickets are OPEN, the day you reach the check-in counter to fly back home, you will find that your position will be waitlisted at 22. But then that’s ok, just propose to the lady in the counter and promise to take her to HAWAI for a honeymoon, and ...presto...you have seats in the business class available for you to fly back home.

7. Nobody reads Minutes of Meetings.
The MOM is the only document next to the "VEDAS" that is to be written with the utmost care, but will never be read. Several precious tiring hours of your life will go in coining the 2 page MOM that will later remain in some unnoticed file in the dusty archives. Emotion, valour, Guts and a lot of debating will go into this document that you will prepare till late in the night before the day you will leave the site. Remember to include "WE WILL REVERT BACK" in almost every point in the MOM. Never imagine that signing a Minutes that says "System found satisfactorily working" will ensure that you bid goodbye to that site. Something will fail in the next 10 hours and you will find yourself at the same place wondering what happened to all that in the MOM. Make sure that your return flight is not more than 2 hours of signing the minutes. If it is any longer ...chances are that you will remain there for the next 4 weekends.


8. Always make sure to land at home on a Friday evening.
Make sure that you land home on a Friday night. This way you can switch off your phone and stay away from office for 2 whole days. Never inform your boss about your return till Monday morning. This will ensure that your weekends will not be spent listening to the dull droning of failed machinery. If possible go to office on Monday morning, at least two hours late. This will give your colleagues the impression that you have come down to office directly from site and that you are committed enough to put in a day's hard work right away. If you are unfortunate enough to be at office on a Friday afternoon, i suggest you remain unnoticed by any human in the office. Stay hidden at the library or the canteen. If you are near a ringing telephone, never pick it up. Remember it could be another customer, with just another most urgent call!

9. If nothing else works restart the system.
This applies to all electrical or electronic gadgets that you are expected to fix or commission .All computers, drives, PLCs, MMIs, Display systems, Control systems and other gadgets are designed to not function as per their description in the manual. The normal behavior can be resumed only after you have restarted the system at least 4 -5 times in succession. Systems that behave funny need a restart. If you have complicated matters so much that your system wont even restart, don’t panic. Just go upstream and switch of the nearest mains power supply, and restart after 10 seconds. Systems have a memory powered by electricity, so when you switch them off they lose their memory. When restarted they wont remember to misbehave.

10.Always complain that the system environment is the most dusty that you have seen.
If it smells. Say, "This smells dangerous". If it looks colored ...Say, "This looks burnt”. Use carbon dust, metal dust, fiber dust, and cotton dust, all to your advantage. Anything small enough to be called as dust can damage your system. If your system has exploded blame it on moisture. If the room where you have to work is warm ask the customer to install an air conditioner immediately, as warmth can damage your system. If it already has an air conditioner ask for a humidity controller system. Moisture can lead to failure. If he has everything and the place looks spick and span, just climb up to the top of your panel, and wipe the top with your fingers and show the customer the black stuff on your skin. Most people don’t clean the top of their panels, as this is very difficult to do. Explain to the customer how important cleanliness is for your system. Give him examples of imaginary customers who keep their systems clean. This will hurt his conscience and hence he will prefer to not talk much to you afterwards. All the better...What more can a SERVICE engineer ask for, than some workplace privacy..Ha!


Enjoy SERVICE