Reminds me of a story I heard of two IT guys I knew who had to drill a cabling hole through one of those hefty tiles you get in data centres. One of them got the drill with the hole cutter and started drilling away. It seemed fast at first but slowed down. "Let me have a go" said the second guy. Still seemed slow to cut, so he really put his weight into it. A few minutes later he was exhausted with sweat dripping off his brow. They took turns, and after about half an hour of this they finally broke through. Of course they eventually realised the drill was in reverse!