I’d seen these about 20 or so years ago related to specifically to Murphy’s Law for the locksmithing trade. You may have heard of Murphy’s Law but if you haven’t, it’s essentially a maxim that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Hopefully you get a little chuckle out of these, whether you are in the trade or not.
Background
An Irish bartender named Murphy is credited (despite his death) with a large and still growing number of laws relating to the likelihood of difficulties. Some think Murphy was a pessimist. True pessimists feel he was unduly optimistic and feel that things are really much worse. Here are a few of the laws that apply to locksmithing.
Murphy’s 35 Laws of Locksmithing
- A broken lock will always work when demonstrated for the locksmith
- The lock will stop working the minute the locksmith leaves
- The only thing you didn’t check for a malfunction will be the source of the problem, but you won’t find it until you are called back
- Whatever the customer has told you to prepare for, the service call will be wrong
- A dropped part will always roll to the exact geographic center of the largest available object for it to roll under
- The probability of the loss or breakage of any part is directly proportional to the difficulty of getting a replacement part
- Irreplaceable parts will always break or be lost, and at the worst possible time
- Replaceable parts will only become available after an important deadline has passed
- Parts that are difficult to install will freely fall out on their own
- Parts that go in easily will be extremely hard to remove, and removal will be necessary to accomplish the needed repair
- The part you will need will be the irreplaceable part you threw away last week because there are no more locks of that type around
- The number of customers that visit your shop is inversely proportional to the number of employees you have to wait on them
- When your entire staff is available, no one will come
- When you are there alone, everyone will come and they will be impatient
- The probability of an auto lockout varies directly with the intensity of the rain
- The length of time it takes to open a vehicle varies directly with the intensity of the rain
- The length of time it takes to open a vehicle or pick a lock varies directly with the number of on-lookers making fun of how long it takes you
- The length of time it takes to open a vehicle or pick a lock varies directly with the number of television and move characters your customer claims can do it in only a few seconds (There is a dispute as to whether it actually takes longer or whether the time just seems to drag when certain customers are around)
- The number of witnesses available is inversely proportional to the skill you demonstrate
- There will never be anyone around to see you do something brilliant
- When you really screw up, you will get network coverage with a 40 share
- The probability of having someone close a safe and spin the dial while you have the back of the lock off will vary directly with the square number of relockers that will be tripped
- The more elaborate the precautions you take, the more likely they are to close a safe and spin the dial while you have the back of the lock off. (Nothing is full-proof because fools are ingenious)
- You will always have what you need when the job is next to your shop
- The lock will always be the wrong hand and not field reversible when the job is more than a 30 minute travel
- Any written specification you have been issued by the customer will be the old one that has since been revised
- Any lock finish or style that you have with you will not match the rest of the hardware in the building
- The harder it is to obtain matching hardware, the more the customer will insist on an exact match
- When a customer has a large number of specialty locks, the lock will require very expensive service and pin kits
- When you buy the kits, you only get to use them one time, or you find that something you already had can be used instead
- When you don’t buy the kits, nothing else you have will work, and you will have constant problems that would have been avoided by buying the kits
- By the time you finally buy the kits, you lost time will exceed the cost of the kits by tenfold. Then your customer will go elsewhere
- The harder you try to get to a call quickly, the more other locksmiths will beat you to it and the less likely you are to get paid for coming out
- The more people they call, the less likely you are to get paid
- Major jerks call every locksmith for a hundred mile radius