provocative maintenance

2 definitions found

provocative maintenance - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  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]
  

provocative maintenance - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  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 unusable state for an indeterminate
     amount of time. See also scratch monkey.