The Magic Finger

When I was a planner I had the good fortune to work for an extraordinary man… let’s call him Socrates. Much of what I say first came out of his mouth. I miss his teaching and fellowship every day. 

Socrates had many lessons about how to run outages, to tell many of them I have to first describe what the Magic Finger is. 

To the casual observer the “Magic Finger” looks like the pointer finger on your hand and in truth it is. The magic of the “Magic Finger” is much more complicated to explain but like all things of genius, it is eventually elegantly simple. 

My first job with Socrates started in a strange way. 

Back in the day we traveled from job to job in 40 cargo containers made into field offices. We were setting up my very first “big” job as a planner, more than 100,000 man-hours. We had material to stage, scaffolding to build, rigging to hang, tools to load in. Lot of stuff to do and I was chomping at the bit to get it going. 

Socrates, however, would not let anything start until he had 10 drum door gaskets on a nail over his desk in our trailer. Being young, brass and ambitious I wanted to start, I had things to do and here was this funny old guy sternly saying “NO!”

I tried to convince him, tried to go around him, tried to get other Foreman to convince him, he would not be moved. Finally after a few days, I overnighted the gaskets. The next day I hammered in nails over his desk and hung the gaskets. Socrates was finally happy, he took his finger and touched the gaskets and said “Kid, do you know what this is?” holding his finger towards me “It’s a Magic Finger”. 

I burst out “are you ****in kidding me, I have over 50 trucks of stuff waiting to get here and you give me this magic finger BS, you nuts”. Luckily, Socrates was a very patient man, he laughed at my juvenile outburst. He then said come with me. We walked outside and touched all the nose tubes, the burner corner parts, the superheat pendants, I could barely contain myself, I had work to do! And this guy was making me touch each part that was lying around the plant. After each thing he would make me touch it with my “Magic Finger” and hold it up to him. This went on all day, after a while I just relented I figured today was shot tomorrow is another day. 

The next day I had a veritable army of manpower, equipment and stuff to do. I told one Foreman to get the nose tubes and get them in the north well, another Foreman I told to get the burner parts laid out etc. etc. all day long people asked me where things were and miraculously I knew (or I should say my “Magic Finger” knew) the day went very well as did the entire outage. 

During a different outage years later, I did not use my magic finger. I was too busy and too important I had people for that now. We were installing a system on a high pressure 1.4 million pound per hour boiler that would pressure drop and de-superheat the steam to 400 psi with 10 degrees of superheat. 

I was told that one of the three main stop valves were being delivered, these were big valves but we were in the “big” business nothing scared me. I got the call from receiving that the valve was here. I got the forklift guy on the radio and told him to pick it off the truck. 

Sometime later he came up to the trailer and said he couldn’t get the valve off the truck. I belittled him “awe did the big bad valve kick your ass”, He just looked back at me and said “it’s a big valve and it ain’t coming off the truck, it’s your problem now smart guy” and then he stomped out of the trailer. 

I found one of my Foreman “ can you go down and get the valve off the truck, the forklift is having a bad hair day”. Off went Ray (the Foreman) and he soon came back “That’s the biggest valve I ever saw, It’s not coming off the truck”. 

I was incredulous, I the “great and powerful…well me” had to stop what I was doing and walk the three blocks to the elevator and down to the street, and back another two blocks to get to the truck, cursing loudly and liberally as I went. When I got to the back of the truck and turned to see the valve I nearly fell over just from the sight of it. It was absolutely the biggest valve I have ever seen and I knew instantly I was an ******* (you know the word). We had to send the truck to our crane yard and lift the valve off with a 50 ton crane. 

The magic of the “Magic Finger” is contained in the phrase “did you see it, did you touch it, if you didn’t shut the “F” up”. Try this test, Ask a question and listen to the answers you get more times than not you get something that is resembles an answer but not the answer. 

For example: 

Q. “Do we have a spare shaft” 

A. “There should be one in the warehouse” …you see this does not answer the question does it!  

Q. “Can someone check the shaft is in the warehouse” 

A. “That’s the ware house guy/girl’s job they should know  

Q. “Can we call them right now and see if the shaft is in the warehouse” 

A. “I’m on the phone with them they say that there is a shaft on the shelf”  

Q. “Is it the right shaft” 

A. “It should be”  

This can go on and on, I’m sure I’m being over dramatic and this never happens in your plant.  

Lets take the “Magic Finger” out for a spin and see what that conversation looks like:  

Q. “Do we have a spare shaft” 

A1. “I don’t know, my “Magic Finger” did not see it or touch it so I’m shutting the “F” up” 

A2. “Yes” 

A3. “No” 

This seems much simpler to me, but then again I’m a simple guy. 

Moral of the Story: 

Being able to communicate clearly and succinctly doesn’t happen overnight. It takes work and work takes tools. The “Magic Finger” is a tool; it is a tool that gets used over and over again and again. It has never failed me although I have failed it many times. 

Rule of Thumb: 

Listen to the answers you get, If they are not to your liking, teach them about their “Magic Finger”.