There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical.<>
After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.<>
Many years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines.<>
They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail.<>
In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.<>
He spent a day studying the huge machine.<>
At the end of the day, he marked a small “x” in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated,<>
“This is where your problem is.”<>
The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.<>
The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.<>
They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:<>
“One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999”<>
