If You Have These Five Genes, You Were Born to Fix Everything

New scientific discovery: Maintenance workers aren’t just trained – they’re genetically engineered for grease, grumbling, and gadget hoarding.

I want to explore some more elemental aspects of maintenance management life. A tremendous amount of work has been done on human genetics. In fact, the entire Human Genome has been described in the last few years. The effort took years and billions of computer steps.

All this research has been to good effect, for we have solved the fundamental problem faced by managers of maintenance workers since the time of the pyramids.

We finally have broken the mystery of what makes maintenance people tick.

As we suspected, the solution is in those tiny bits of life deep inside our bodies called genes. However, we don’t know definitively if the maintenance manager’s plight is entirely due to genetics. More research is needed.

It is the eternal question of nature (genetics) versus nurture (upbringing). Many people believe that people with maintenance anomalies coupled with the wrong upbringing end up as drifters or traveling salespeople and never realize their potential.

Are Maintenance Skills in Your DNA? Let’s Find Out

Five genetic anomalies have been noticed in maintenance workers. Most have three or more anomalies, and some have all five. Of course, people in other fields may have some anomalies, too.

Pissing and Moaning Gene

Maintenance people are never satisfied. They perpetually look around the environment for examples to support their dissatisfaction. Of course, this makes them great maintenance people. How is this so?

A maintenance person can walk by a row of pumps and detect one with a burned bearing. Remember, they look around the environment for problems. They are dissatisfied and want some reasons. A maintenance career provides those reasons every day. A dissatisfied maintenance worker in a maintenance environment is happy!

Packrat Gene

Maintenance people can’t throw things away. It’s bad enough that they have filled their garage (never room for the car) basement at home, and their collection is at risk of taking over the whole maintenance shop. If you have a question about this, look around the shop.

Are there rat holes with old stuff in them? Is the stockroom a mess? If so, then this gene is the culprit. Of course, the contents of these rat holes have saved the manager’s posterior more than once.

Toy Gene

Oh, I mean the tool gene. How silly of me to get mixed up. Do your maintenance people spend half their income with the Snap-on guy? Are their kids starving because they are saving for the newest and best toys and tools? When they were kids, did they always want the humongous Erector sets (pre-Lego)?

If you notice this, then they are plagued with the Toy gene. Of course, when you need the specific tool, you’re happy to have it since it might have saved half a day! Some people think this is sex-linked, but it isn’t. My former wife has this gene, which shows up in sewing machine stuff, fabric, and fashion magazines!

Independence Gene

Getting maintenance folks going in the same direction is like herding cats. Each one has an opinion and is convinced theirs is the best. It makes great maintenance guys because they will say what’s so about whatever you ask, but it is challenging to deal with daily. The really independent ones must have gotten a double shot of this gene.

Dirt Gene

This gene is expressed in some maintenance people by them being dirty even right after they come in. Somehow, their skin and clothes attract dirt and grease from the atmosphere.

Not every maintenance person has it, but you can tell those who do. I thought everyone had it until I worked alongside an electrician. We did the same work, but I was covered with dirt at the end of the day, and he wasn’t. I must have a double shot of that one.

I hope this has given you some insight into the maintenance personality. As we have shown, it’s really not their fault. So give them a break today and buy some cool tools.