The Slow Learning Curve

Starting of with the setting: I currently work at a medium sized to small engineering company as an intern. This company is quite known for its quality products (in their special circle of customers, as they are quite specialized as well). But all this doesn't really matter. I heard this particular story yesterday at lunch break from my coworker ($youngSparky), one of the two inhouse electricians.

There also is the "Sparky Guru" ($Guru) who basically knows everything which has a plug in that company, as he wired it in the beginning. Sadly he is already quite old and will retire soon. Young sparky has already learned a lot from $Guru and knows his field just the same, the only difference is that he is, well, a little more "direct". He is at the company for a few hours and does some repairs, the rest of the time he is on standby 24/7.

However there are some people who normally know their field, but nothing beyond. One guy like that is $MillTechnician.

So the Mills at this company are serious machines! They are often many meters long and often the technician is standing on a platform which is travelling together with the milling head. Needless to say these machines can be quite dangerous. They do exactly what they are told to and they don't care when there is a human body part in its current path. For exactly that reason there are quite a few emergeny switches all over the place. If something happens, there will always be a safe switch nearby for turning the machine off.

These switches sometimes are in a strange position, but they are all quite large and in bright red and yellow colors. So you should normally be able to see them... Normally...

So enough of the setting. Here comes the story:

$youngSparky gets a call, it's:

$millTechnician: Hey could you come by and have a look at the machine, it's not working. It says it is not ready for operation.

$youngSparky: Well, did you check the emergency switches?

$millTechnician: Yes I did!

$youngSparky: All of them? Also the one in the corner?

$millTechnician: yes!

$youngSparky comes by, looks at the machine, finds the pressed emergency switch, untwists it and restarts the machine. Everything working again.

$youngSparky: ?

$millTechnician: ...

Fast forward a couple of weeks, $youngSparky is on a trip with his motor bike and gets a call. You can guess from whom... First question:

$youngSparky: Did you check all of them? Like all?

$millTechnician: Yes I did! Twice!

$youngSparky turns around, drives to the company with his bike, enters the building and....

...hears the machine running. Well lets just say that he didn't even bother stamping his timecard. He just went straight to $millTechnician and told him in very clear "words" that $millTechnician will be in deep trouble when this happens again. Apparantly $millTechnician was not as dumb as expected and checked the switches a third time and must have remembered the one in the corner...

Fast forward to present day. The machine wasn't working again the night before, but $millTechnician hadn't called. 1:0 for $youngSparky. User has learned, although it took some time....

PS pls help me find a tldr ;) Sorry for formatting...