I'd like to believe this story (haven't found an authoritative source yet) that I heard once from a professional speaker of the FedEx main processing facility in Memphis.
One day it completely stopped dead - usually it is controlled mayhem with the packages and machines running - the silence was deafening - thousands of dollars lost every minute. They brought in the best expert they could find. He investigated and went to a single box in the plant, opened a door, and turned one bolt with a wrench and everything restarted. The plant came back to life. He sent them a bill for $10,000. When FedEx protested the bill - "You just turned a single bolt! Anyone could have done that" - he itemized it and sent it back. They paid him.
Turning a bolt $ 1
Knowing which bolt to turn $9,999
Unfortunately, this is likely just a modified version of a (almost certainly also fictional) anecdote about Picasso. I've heard this one from several different places:
A woman walks up to Picasso, later in life, as he sits at a cafe table. "Could you draw me a sketch?" she asks, thinking she'll make a quick buck. "I can pay you for it."
Picasso shrugs, says "sure", and quickly scratches out a little something on a napkin. "That'll be $10,000," he says.
"$10,000! But it only took you a few seconds!"
"Just the drawing of it took a few seconds," Picasso replies. "Learning how took my entire life."
In the russian versions of the story the expert usually hits the object (server, or the machine that stopped working) with a huge hammer in the carefully identified spot. The result is the same though - the system resumes working as intended.
But, well, that's just the cultural differences in the ways the things are usually being fixed.
Actually you get the hammer one in automotive maintenance examples, and also if you are talking to an older generation where hitting stuff worked much better.
The fashion version may date back to Nancy Mitford's _The Pursuit of Love_ or _Love in a Cold Climate_, but a) with reference to Schiaparelli, and with the valuation mentioned by a disinterested bystander.
I actually know one that is true. The Air Force back in the 60's brought some old piston engine transports back into service. The mechanics could not get the engines to deliver the power to spec, they read the manuals, and did everything they could think of, no dice.
Finally, the AF hired some old mechanics out of retirement who used to work on them, and they promptly had them running to spec. Turns out there's a lot on how to tune them that was never written down.
One day it completely stopped dead - usually it is controlled mayhem with the packages and machines running - the silence was deafening - thousands of dollars lost every minute. They brought in the best expert they could find. He investigated and went to a single box in the plant, opened a door, and turned one bolt with a wrench and everything restarted. The plant came back to life. He sent them a bill for $10,000. When FedEx protested the bill - "You just turned a single bolt! Anyone could have done that" - he itemized it and sent it back. They paid him.