Yeah to be fair I have a lot of specialized knowledge and experience around the high paying work. But under the hood the approach, methods, tools, and way of thinking are fundamentally identical. I get hired for the high paying stuff in part due to the domain expertise, but really I command that price because I’m $450 an hour better at the $50 an hour work than most other people with the domain expertise. Or maybe I just want to believe that.
An oil man had a pump on the fritz and needed someone to fix it, fast. He sought the advice of the best expert he could find, and luckily when the expert listened to the problem he said, "let me spend a day with it and see what I can do."
The old expert pulls up in an empty pickup with only a hammer and nail in hand, calmly walks over to the pump, places the nail on the side, and taps it. Then, the expert dusts himself off and hands the oil man a slip of paper that reads,
"Total $1,000. Nail $1. Where to place the nail $999"
I knew I had heard another version of this story, but it was about Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Found it on the smithsonian website.
Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.
Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.
Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:
Making chalk mark on generator $1.
Knowing where to make mark $9,999.
