Heres a good trick in regards to greasing and maintenance. If you break it, you are responsible for it. Blowing an engine with a full pan of oil is noticable, because oil will be everywhere. Accidents happen. A relatively dry engine will not be too messy, and grease fittings will be dirty after a week without greasing. If a guy is too lazy to grease, then he's probably too lazy to wipe up any excess grease on the zirk that he may have claimed to put in. Check em.

Being an operator myself, the last thing I want to do is burn up a machine because of lack of maintenance. You don't want your reputation to be tarnished with something stupid like that.

On the owners side, if your operator is telling you that a gauge isn't working, or somethings making a funny noise, don't slough it off and give the guy attitude like he's a prima donna. He's telling you your investment is in danger of being ruined. Nothing like telling the boss, "Hey, my water temp gauge isn't working, I need to get it fixed." and getting the reply, "we can deal with that later, just run that piece, and be careful." As months go by without being fixed, the thermostat sticks, and the head gets cracked. Machine down, profit lost, man paid, project dates rearranged. All over a stupid gauge.

Management says," That man is a shrirker! He's not doing his maintenance!" "If he was this wouldn't be a problem!"

Operator says," That is the biggest BS outfit I've ever worked for, their equipment is junk." " I told them about that thing 5 months ago, a 30 minute fix is all it needed."

Your equipment is your lifeblood of your trade, make sure you get the small things fixed before they become big things.