unreasonable expectations

I'm going on a rant tonight!

I'm pretty used to having to defend my strange life choices at work, anything from my religion to what I drive gets criticized because I have a tendency not to follow what happens to be classified as "normal". So as I'm defending my choice to like old Polaris ATV's in the lunch room today one of the guys tells me "they are a piece of shit!" to which I responded "That's funny I've ridden one for 15 years and its been basically trouble free". Then he tells me I don't use it hard enough to break it, to which I respond "I've pulled with it so hard in low range the front tires were off the ground, how much harder can I use it?" He told me if I had big tires on it and 5 or 6 people dragging deer out of the woods it would never survive........ hence the title of this blog.

If there were a present day incarnation of a neanderthal it would be my boss. He thinks unless it's got a Cummins it can't be considered a truck and anything he doesn't own is a piece of shit..... I wonder who was giving me grief about liking Polaris..... yea that's right, the knuckle dragger that owns a Honda.

Now this is just my opinion, but I believe in the right tool for the job. You can carry a Swiss Army knife that does lots of things half assed, or you can carry a bunch of individual tools that all do their job well. Two different options, but both can be right. If I judged my Porsche by how well it pulled a cattle trailer, I would swear I bought a piece of shit just like if my boss judged his diesel by how well it ran an autocross track. Does that make either of our respective vehicles a piece of junk? The answer is NO absolutely not, they are built for 2 very different tasks. When a company is designing something they have to define its purpose before they can start to build anything. Back to my example of the four wheeler, what size tires did it come with? how many seats does it have?...... If you have decided to IGNORE what the manufacturer built it to do, how can you be justified in calling it a pile of junk if it breaks? If the manufacturer wanted it to have big tires and carry six people they obviously would have built the components differently. So what you're really saying is, my four wheeler isn't OVERBUILT enough for your liking.

Some people would argue that there is nothing wrong with building an assembly stronger than it needs to be, but I would have to disagree. Although I'm not 100% against it, I can think of plenty of drawbacks to overbuilding an assembly. Cost would be the first drawback, extra material adds extra cost, if its not necessary for the purpose it is intended to serve, you have added unnecessary cost to an assembly. Weight, just like cost, extra material means extra weight, this can effect performance and overall efficiency. The other two potential drawbacks I can think of are spatial constraints and added complexity.

So back to the 4 wheelers as an example, My Polaris may not have been overbuilt, and I can't say for sure what would happen if I put big tires on it and 6 people. What I can say is that stock for stock it will whip a Foreman's ass in a drag race or a top speed run and it will be a lot more comfortable ride while doing so.

Moral of the story: My shit does what I want it to do, your shit does what you want it to do, that doesn't make either of them a piece of shit. If you want something overbuilt expect to pay a premium and have the drawbacks that come with it.