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provocative maintenance
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provocative maintenance /n./ [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.
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