Powering Down Results In Power Trips

I did maintenance at heavy industrial plants for most of my career. We typically did planned shutdowns of the entire plant every year to work on infrastructure. I would be running around trying to juggle a dozen jobs when I would get a page from a manager.

Since this was pre-cellphones, I would need to go all the way across the factory to find a phone and call the manager.

Manager: “How long until the power is turned back on?! This is costing money!”

Me: “I need to complete [list of tasks].”

Manager: “Well, what’s taking so long?”

Me: “My work keeps getting interrupted by managers paging me and asking me how long until the power is turned back on.”

Manager: “…”

At the end of the year, when I was going through my useless performance review, my own boss asked me:

Boss: “Do those manager calls actually make a difference in how quickly they get their power back?”

Me: “Yes, it makes a difference, just not in the way that they want.”