When maintaining industrial equipment it is important to use the right tools for the job.

What would you do if your boss ordered you to improperly test the calibration on a grill without the right tools, and when you refused, he demanded that another electrician do it?

That is the situation the electrician in this story was in. Let’s see how it all plays out.

Ordered to do maintenance on a grill without the right equipment, grill was broken trying anyways

A little bit of backstory to help explain some of the later facts.

In the military, every piece of equipment gets preventative maintenance done on it to maintain it in “good, working condition”.

In the Navy, we have a very well-laid out maintenance system with step-by-step instructions on how to do every bit of maintenance, with instructions so simple a monkey could do it.

Part of these maintenance procedures lists required tools, parts, materials, and test equipment, and they are also extremely specific.

Detailing the length requirement of your screw drivers, the brand of your gauges, etc.

The management of this system the Navy uses is called the Maintenance & Material Management System, 3M; or Planned Maintenance System, PMS.

Cooks had to rely on the electricians for maintenance.

As an electrician, we owned all electrical distribution equipment onboard, and for jobs without an electrical training background, we also “owned” the actual equipment.

So, the Electronics Technicians, with electrical training, could maintain their own electrical equipment.

But the Cooks (Culinary Specialists), without an electrical background, relied on us to maintain their equipment for them.

Keeping things at the right temperature is important.

Now, if you’ve ever used a commercial flat-top grill/griddle before, you know you set it to a specific temperature you want the cooktop heated to, and not a “0-9” dial like your stove at home.

Part of maintaining the griddle was checking the calibration of this temperature setting once every year or two (I forget how often this check was, but it wasn’t a frequent check).

Relatively early on when I got onboard the ship, young EMFN (junior electrician) GwenBD94 was assigned to do this maintenance check, so I gathered all of my tools parts materials etc.

In doing so I couldn’t find the proper temperature sensor for our calibrated temperature gauge.

We had the round-tip ambient temperature probe for use in the ovens, but not the flat-tip surface temperature probe for use on a griddle.

He assumed the problem was solved.

I asked a different supervisor to my *favorite* supervisor for help, and he couldn’t find it either, so we ordered a new one, and he said he’d take care of the paperwork for the maintenance check.

Being new and unfamiliar with the system I let it go and never questioned when the maintenance check disappeared from the maintenance list the next week (meaning someone “accomplished” it hint hint nudge nudge) and all was good.

The next time this maintenance check came up due, we were on deployment, and it was again assigned to me.

By this time, we had a new supervisor, and I was now EM3 (slightly less-junior electrician) GwenBD94!

A bit more knowledgeable.

I looked where we kept all our calibrated equipment and couldn’t find the flattop temperature probe I knew it needed so I asked my supervisor.

How can he figure it out without the right tools?

He found we had one on order but didn’t know that we had one in the shop, and told me to “figure it out”.

Knowing that was an unlawful order and would amount to lying about the check and could bite me in the behind later, I said I wouldn’t do the maintenance without the right equipment, and since he couldn’t lawfully order me to, we started putting a note on the check that the tools were on order, and delaying it.

This went on for about 2-3 months until the check was about to “go red” (move out of periodicity and cause negative numbers on out maintenance reports), and I was again ordered to figure it out or I’d be written up.

He wasn’t going to “figure it out.”

I refused, and raised the same issue to my boss’s boss and we tore the shop apart trying to find the right equipment but couldn’t find it, so he told me not to worry about it.

Later that week, while I was on watch as a roving watch stander (allowed to walk around the ship, and even required to) after dinner one evening I saw a newer more junior electrician, lets call him EMFA Timmy (even more junior than I initially was electrician) in the galley (kitchen) working on the griddle!

I took a step into the galley and asked him what he was doing and low and behold, he was doing the maintenance check!

This sounds like a big problem.

I asked him what temperature probe he was using and he showed me the one for the oven.

I explained to him the issue and told him if he signed the maintenance check it would be “gun-decking” (lying on official paperwork) and he could get in trouble, but let him make his own decisions as an adult.

He decided to continue doing the check.

I giggled and continued on with my watch.

After my watch, it was nearly 10PM so I went to bed for the night.

This is an even bigger problem.

About an hour later I got woken up, being told my supervisor needed me in the galley.

I signed, figuring it was about the check, and I was going to get that earlier threatened write-up.

After getting dressed and making it to the galley, the entire electrical shop was in the galley troubleshooting the griddle.

You see, EMFA Timmy got to the step in the PMS where it said to use a screwdriver to adjust a dial until the thermometer read the same temperature indicated by the set temperature.

When he measured it, it was off by about 150 degrees, so he kept turning up the heat.

Eventually, it was hot enough to melt the griddle’s built-in over-temp protection device, instantly shutting the stovetop off.

Timmy hadn’t even finished the job.

Turns out, he *did* need that temperature probe!

I was tasked with helping come up with a solution to fix it, because the griddle was a critical piece of equipment for the cooks, and we had no replacement parts to fix it.

I asked EMFA Timmy if he ever finished the last steps of the maintenance card (turning the grill off, putting it back together, reporting completion of the PMS).

He told me he hadn’t.

OP refused to do anything to help.

I turned to my boss and said since the maintenance check i explicitly advised against doing without the proper tools was still ongoing, and I was informed I could do the maintenance or be written up, I’d stick with my original decision and refuse to do the maintenance.

He could write me up in the morning during working hours, but in the mean time, I was going back to bed.

Have a nice night.

It sounds like it was worth it.

In the morning, I did indeed get written up, but for the insubordination (not for refusing the maintenance check), while my boss’ boss looked on with the biggest grin at me for holding my ground, and my supervisor was mad at me.

Turns out, I was right and we *couldn’t* do that maintenance check without the right equipment!

This remains one of my write ups I am least ashamed to have ever gotten, and I’d take it again in a heartbeat to give a giant “I told you so” middle finger to idiot middle managers.

I later found an electronic record of the counseling chit my supervisor got for tasks people with doing maintenance without the proper equipment, because I laid out that this was a known issue we didn’t have the right probe for years and threw him deep under the bus (hated the guy).

We got the right probe in about 6 months later!

This manager shouldn’t be surprised that his demands backfired.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about this story.

Is this the best use of military money?

This person says the military can be crazy when ordering things.

This is funny.

Here is someone from the Navy.

I’m sure it just got misplaced.

I bet that mistake cost the taxpayers a lot of money.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.