Yet another "identify this SF story"

Cafe Society
1

For some reason I have this vignette playing in my head. The official techies (empire engineers?) are working on some person’s old hardware (warp boat?) and someone notices how silly it is that these totally high-tech experts are fixing up this totally out-of-date piece of crud that is worth zero.

That’s all I’ve got. I know it’s out there somewhere.

2

That doesn’t sound like an SF story at all. That sounds like my real life, back in grad school:

Mechanic: “The seal around your Drive shaft is shot. To fix it, I’ll have to take out the engine. That’ll cost $400… $400 will buy a lotta motor oil.”