provocative maintenance

[Common ironic mutation of "preventive maintenance"] Actions

performed upon a machine at regularly scheduled intervals to

ensure that the system remains in a usable state. So called

because it is all too often performed by a field servoid who

doesn't know what he is doing; such "maintenance" often

*induces* problems, or otherwise results in the machine's

remaining in an *un*usable state for an indeterminate amount

of time. See also scratch monkey.

[Jargon File]