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.

