Solving problems when you think you know nothing
By Amber Fessler, Contributing Editor | TLT Shop Floor March 2026
You might have the exact skill set needed to identify the cause of a problem.
Very early in my lubrication career, I was sent into the field with a sales rep to provide training to a customer. I was still green, but I had my materials ready, and I was prepared to speak about the topic and answer some (but hopefully not too many!) questions.
After I had arrived and it was too late to back out, I was told, “By the way, we are also going to visit an end-user who is having a problem with a bearing. They’ve tried every grease they can get their hands on and they’re still having issues.” I was terrified, as I knew even less about grease than I knew about fluids, which was not very much. What I didn’t realize was that I already had the exact skill set I needed to identify the cause of the problem, and even if you are relatively new to the world of lubrication, you probably do, too.
Sometimes specialized knowledge can get in the way of good old-fashioned problem-solving. Physicians in training are told, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras,” meaning not to step over common maladies as suspects when a symptom presents that could also be part of something rarer and more exciting. Humans love solving problems and we love the novelty of those zebras.
When presented with a lubrication problem, it’s normal to start scrolling through one’s mental database. Experience can be useful, but if the solution isn’t immediately clear, we must take a step back and engage Rudyard Kipling’s “six honest serving-men”: What, Why, When, How, Where and Who. What was different when the problem occurred? How is this usually done? Who usually performs this function?
When you’ve been brought in as The Expert, it’s not easy to be vulnerable enough to ask basic questions of the end-user. You may feel pressured to quickly understand the situation and proclaim a solution, but you’re not expected to know everything about the customer’s equipment and operations. I assure you that most end-users will appreciate thoroughness, even if it means they will have to wait a few more days for answers. Thoroughness may look like:
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Asking very basic questions about their process and operations
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Formulating follow-up questions for clarification, even if it feels redundant
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Repeating what you heard back to them to ensure you understood
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Contacting them after the visit if you have additional questions
Sometimes the best answer you can provide when you’re standing in front of the end-user is, “This issue is new to me, but I’ve recorded the details, and I want to take this back to my team to discuss.” It’s honest and sets the expectation that what you will deliver will be your best possible solution.
In the case of the bearing failure, I arrived at the plant to find the largest bearing I had ever seen lying on the floor with so many colors of grease emerging that it looked like it was full of birthday cake frosting. They had tried a new grease every time the bearing stopped working again, clearly unconcerned about grease compatibility. While incompatibility may have become an issue at some point, I was confident that it wasn’t the originating cause of the failure.
With no idea whether I would ever figure out what the problem was, I went for quantity and asked as many basic questions as I could come up with about the greasing procedure, who performed it and if anything was done differently before the failure. The answer to the problem came out purely as an aside to the conversation we were having—the mechanic chuckled and admitted, “We dropped it while we were reinstalling it.”
Amber Fessler is senior sector manager, lubricants for CITGO Petroleum Corp. in Houston, Texas. You can reach her at afessle@citgo.com.