protocol
= P =
prowler
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.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.