A Day in the Life of a Service Engineer...

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It was supposed to be a normal day. Alarm, coffee, a hot dog with some suspicious sauce at the gas station. The radio played “our song” and for a moment I really believed I’d be home at a decent hour.

But if you’ve ever worked in service, you know: a daily plan makes about as much sense as a weather forecast in November.

First obstacle? Security at the factory gate. A lovely elderly lady with thick glasses tried to write down the name of our company. “Matsuboszi Elektryc.” “Mitsubashi.” After a few attempts, she finally let me write it myself – though it felt more like a diplomatic victory than an actual one.

Second obstacle? The robot was bolted in such a way that I had to crawl through a 50x50 hole. At that time, my body shape was… let’s just say very close to the ideal shape of a ball. I squeezed in, sat in a puddle of oil on top of some cables, and while undoing screws, I lost a nut. We searched for it for fifteen minutes, until Tomek, my service partner, spotted it… stuck in my beard.

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Of course, that wasn’t all. I thought I’d be clever and save some time using a power tool instead of a screwdriver. And as the old saying goes: when you’re in a hurry, the devil laughs. I broke the thread. Instead of faster, it was slower. Classic.

And then the spare part didn’t fit. Everything matched on paper, except someone at the factory had decided to change the shaft diameter a few months earlier. Replacing the whole motor? The customer immediately said: “No way.” So we had to improvise.

And then came the waiting. Hours on the shop floor, staring at machines, waiting for production to give us the green light. Growling stomachs, meatballs with beetroot salad in the canteen – and that strange satisfaction of knowing that, despite everything, the robot would run again.

Eventually, it did… but only long after midnight, after a U-turn on the highway and desperate phone calls to a colleague who saved us with one single parameter.

I drove home exhausted, hungry, smelling of oil, knowing I’d have to get up again in the morning. But at the same time weirdly proud. Because life as a service engineer is exactly that: frustrating, funny, and rewarding all at once.

Colorful – though mostly in shades of grease and oil.