Featured Positive Inspirational Story
September and October 2021
The Value of Knowledge
As its crew was preparing to leave port, a giant cargo ship’s engine suddenly stopped working. The ship’s captain contacted one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine.
Then one of the captain’s senior crew contacted an older man who had been fixing problems with ship’s engines all his working life.
When he arrived, he carried a large bag of tools with him and immediately went to work spending time inspected the engine very carefully for around 45 minutes.
The ship’s captain and members of his crew stood close by watching the old man and hoping he would know what to do to fix the engine.
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 engine and instantly, the engine lurched into life.
He put his hammer in his bag stating that the engine was fixed.
A couple of weeks later on the ships return to port, the captain received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.00.
‘What?’ . . . the captain exclaimed. ‘He hardly did anything!’
So, he sent a note to the old man asking him to provide an itemised invoice setting all of his charges.
The old man sent back the itemised invoice which read:
1. Time spent checking the engine - $100.00
2. Tapping the engine with a hammer - $ 50.00
3. Knowing where to tap - $ 9,850.00
An expert's knowledge has an enormous value, if it helps provide a quick and effective solution.
Author Unknown
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