There was once an old submarine, out to sea for months at a time.
 
As it approached the remote Polynesian Island, a clunking sound began to echo throughout the vessel.
 
The engineer had never heard such a sound. “Clunk, clunk, grind” it went, again and again, with the sound echoing throughout the ship, growing in loudness each time the ship went above a particular speed or power setting.
The captain, knowing he would not be near land for several more weeks asked to surface, and began heading towards the largest of the nearby islands, Jarvis, to try to make some repairs, and for the crew to also take a brief break.
 
After 3 days in dock, none of the Captains crew could fix the problem. In fact, they still had no idea what the problem actually was.
 
The dock hand advised that there was an expert submarine engineer who lived on the island, who was back from one of his many trips, working away on submarines, who also ran a local boat engineering business. The dock hand explained that he wasn’t always cheap, but was good. Frustrated by the many days of hard work getting nowhere, the Captain agreed, and asked the dock hand to arrange for to come down and help him to fix the submarine.
 
“A lovely Type 43B Class 2 isn’t she", said a tall tanned man walking up to the dock, wearing a flowery shirt, shorts, and sandals, carrying a heavy looking metal toolkit, seeing the stressed captain, scratching his head on the beautiful sun kissed wooden pontoon.
 
The Captain, nodded, looking surprised at this man. No sooner had the captain described the problem, and answered a few questions about the impact of revs, sound at depth, and what were the exact timings of the clunks and grinds, did he ask permission to go aboard, putting down his metal toolkit on the dock, and grabbing just the rubber mallet to take with him.
 
Hearing a single loud bang, and with not more than 3 minutes having passed, the man emerged from the submarine, and returned his mallet to the box.
 
He confirmed that the problem was now properly resolved, and bidded the captain farewell, and went off, promising to send him the invoice by email.
 
Off into the blue ocean, the captain went once again, pleased that this trouble was firmly behind him.
 
Upon receipt of the email, the captain opened it to see a bill of $200.
Shocked, by such a high bill for only 3 minutes work with a single hit with a rubber mallet, he emailed him to ask him to justify and breakdown the invoice.
 
The reply was brief, but self explanatory:
“Justification - Hitting down-pipe with mallet - $1. Knowing exactly where to hit it $199”
 
The moral of the story - Never under-estimate the time of others, and the value of the right knowledge at the right time to the right people.
1