Irritating cowrker, Part II - How do I deal with him?

Question

My coworker and I are going around about my equipment. My boss knows about each and every one of our "discussions" because its stressing me out. He works in a different group and they use my group's autoclave, not as much as we do, so if the autoclave goes down then my group is the one most affected by it. He thinks a service call to fix the autoclave, and our down time is worth less $$ then if his stuff gets ruined by letting the thing run overtime for its cycle.
He doesn't understand when its ok to use the reset button w/o breaking the thing, and keeps asking me when he can use the reset. I keep telling him the same thing, but he just says umm. He keeps asking me about it after my boss has left, so I can't tell him to go talk to her about it. I tried to do that once, and he ran, said he didn't need to talk to her. I can't tell if he's trying to trap me into saying something I don't mean or trick me or mess me up so he can tell his boss.

Answer 1

put your instructions to him in writing, copy your boss, and refer him to the instructions if he asks you again. i doubt he is trying to trick you. it just sounds like he doesn't understand the machine and how it works.