Murphy's Laws of Locksmithing

An Irish bartender named Murphy is credited with a large and still growing (despite his death) number of laws relating to the likely hood of difficulties. Some thing Murphy was a pessimist. True Pessimists feel he was unduly optimistic and fear that things are really much worse. Here are a few of the laws that apply to Locksmithing.

• A broken lock will always work when demonstrated for the locksmith.
  • The lock will stop working the minute the locksmith leaves.
  • The only thing you didn't check for a malfunction, will be the source of the problem, but you won't find it until you are called back.
• What ever the customer has told you to prepare for the service call will be wrong.
• A dropped part will always roll to the exact geographic center of the largest available object for it to roll under.
• The probability of the loss or breakage of any part is directly proportional to the difficulty of getting a replacement part.
  • Irreplaceable parts will always break or be lost, and at the worst possible time.
  • Replaceable parts will only become available after an important deadline has passed.
• Parts that are difficult to install will freely fall out on their own.
• Parts that go in easily will be extremely hard to remove, and removal will be necessary to accomplish the needed repair.
• The part you will need will be the irreplaceable part you threw away last week because there are no more locks of that type around
• The number of customers that visit your shop is inversely proportional to the number of employees you have to wait on them.
  • When your entire staff is available no one will come.
  • When you are there alone, everyone will come and they will be impatient.
• The probability of an auto lockout varies directly with the intensity of the rain.
• The length of time it take to open any vehicle varies directly with the intensity of the rain.
• The length of time it take to open a vehicle or pick a lock varies directly with the number of on-lookers making fun of how long it takes you.
• The length of time it take to open a vehicle or pick a lock varies directly with the number of television and movie characters your customer claims can do it in only a few seconds. {There is a dispute as to whether it actually takes longer or whether time just seams to drag when certain customers are around}
• The number of witnesses available is inversely proportional to the skill you demonstrate.
  • There will never be anyone around to see you do something brilliant
  • When you really screw up, you will get network coverage with a 40 share.
• The probability of having someone closing a safe and spinning the dial while you have the back of the lock off will vary directly with the square of the number of people you tell not to touch the safe while you get something out of the truck.
  • The probability of having someone close a safe and spinning the dial while you have the back of the lock off will vary directly with the square of the number of re-lockers that will be tripped.
  • The more elaborate the precautions you take the more likely they are to close a safe and spin the dial while you have the back of the lock off. {Nothing is fool-proof because fools are too ingenuous}
• The probability of arriving at the job site without a needed tool or with the wrong hardware are directly proportional with the square of the travel distance
  • You will always have what you need when the job is next to your shop.
  • They lock will always be the wrong hand and not field reversible when the job is more than 1/2 hour travel.
• Any written specification you have been issued by the customer will be the old one that has since been revised.
• Any lock finish or style that you have with you will not match the rest of the hardware in the building.
• The harder it is to obtain matching hardware, the more the customer will insist on an exact match.
  • If you have an exact match the customer will say " Matching isn't important, don't you have anything cheaper?"
• When a customer has a large number of specialty locks , that lock will require very expensive service and pin kits.
  • When you buy the kits, you only get to use them one time, or you find that something you already have can be used instead.
  • When you don't buy the kits, nothing else that you have will work instead, and you will have constant problems that would have been avoided by buying the kits.
  • By the time you finally buy the kits your lost time will exceed the cost of the kits by ten fold. Then your customer will go elsewhere.
• The harder you try to get to a call quickly, the more other locksmiths will beat you to it and the less likely you are to get paid for coming out.
• The more difficult the customer, the more locksmiths he calls to come out.
  • The more people they call, the less likely you are to get paid.
  • Major ass holes call every locksmith for a hundred miles radius.
  • They only pay the first to show up and complain about the price they have to pay, even though they were quoted that price before they told you to come.
• No matter how low you bid the job there is always an idiot out there willing to do it for less.
  • The more you cut your price to get business, the more likely you are to go out of business.
  • The more you try to compete on a price basis the lower your prices will go. Your income will follow.
• The bigger your yellow pages ad is the more low priced calls from non-repeat customers you will get.
  • Increasing the ad size and cost increases the percentage of low profit calls you get.
  • The prize for beating out all other locksmiths for the biggest most expensive advertising in all the different yellow pages books is bankruptcy
• The more you advertise that you have 24 hour service the more security guards and Insomniacs will call you in the middle of the night with request for price quotations.
  • You will get angry calls from people who stopped by your shop at midnight and you weren't there even though you advertised 24 hour service.
  • You will get calls after midnight from people who saw your 24 hour service claim and want to have you meet them at your shop immediately to cut one key on your 89 cent coupon special. {On this lost Leader you lose your mind and your sleep.}
• Your best apprentice will quit and open a shop across the street and cut your prices. The one who is un-trainable will stay with you forever.

I wrote this myself in 1996. I put it up on my site. Some one saw it and published it to a locksmith e-mail list with out crediting me. I was later contacted by the Murphy's laws site and gave them permission to reprint it.

In the July-August 1997 issue of Keynotes it appeared with the notation that it was reprinted with permission of TAOL Magazine. It would appear that The Association of Ontario Locksmiths liked it and printed it. I am willing to let anyone make use of it provided that I am credited as the author. If it is being used commercially and the publisher customerily pays for submissions then the check should be sent to me. I do object to having my work used with out credit being given to me or being sold by others as if they had rights to it.You may use it but credit me.

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Last modified : 8/12/00 by John F. Bousquet, CML, {owner JFB Desktop Publishing}