provocative maintenance: [common ironic mutation of `preventive maintenance'] n.

:provocative maintenance: [common ironic mutation of `preventive
maintenance'] n. 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}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary