Adventures in Moving

I have a pet peeve that involves poor design, it can be an object, a system or line of thought.  Every ten years or so I have an occasion to either drive or rent a U-Haul truck.  I’m not mad at U-Haul, they have made it relatively painless to rent and return one of their vehicles.  I’m mad at the vehicle manufacturers.

I seem to recall that my first experience with a U-Haul truck back about twenty years or so involved a basic model truck.  No air conditioning, no good time radio, a governor so it wouldn’t exceed 45 mph and seats that really didn’t deserve the name.  It got job done.

Ten years later, my next foray into U-Haul land, the truck had an AM-AM radio with a single tinny speaker and an air conditioner that blew.  Gone were the governor and the torture seats.  It was an improvement and again the mission was accomplished.

This past week I got a brand new U-Haul, manufactured by Ford.  It had AM-FM stereo, with ports for an MP3 player and extra power outlets.  A climate control system, cruise control, six way adjustable seats and cup holders. That is where Ford failed.

As we left the apartments where I had been staying, we stopped at the first available stop and rob to get a cold drink.  I opted for a big gulp, a 32 ounce Coke Zero. I hoisted myself into the cab and set my drink down in the cup holder.  It fit, no wiggling no shifting, no indication that the cup holder would do anything it was not designed to do. I pulled onto the street as the traffic light changed and accelerated.  This is a U-Haul truck. As I accelerated the drink launched itself out of the holder, I caught it in mid air. I can understand this happening if I was driving a Corvette and I had just kicked it in the ass, but a U-Haul?

I placed the drink in the holder, gave it a twist to make sure it was seated and entered the freeway.  During the bone crushing acceleration from 45 mph to 55 mph, in a U-Haul that was fully loaded, the cup once again jumped out the holder. I caught it again.

Let’s consider this for a moment.  A designer at Ford said, “I know we need drink holders and we can put them here.”  He may have contacted the market research people and asked, “When people load trucks and then drive them what do they drink?” Market research said, ” a thirty-two ounce big gulp, with coffee being a close second.”  Our intrepid designer then came up with a cup holder that would accommodate different sized cups.  Next stop would be manufacturing.  Can manufacturing build the cup design that works and still stay within price constraints?  Manufacturing could and did.  From there to mock up where an actual interior model is built.  I can see the look of triumph and high fives all around when our designer slips the thirty-two ounce big gulp into the holder.  I imagine it was somewhat akin to the Gods slipping Excalibur into the stone. With all these levels of review, not one of these assholes asked, “How will it work when it is full?”  Great concept, bad execution.

All was not lost.  During the four times that the big gulp jumped from the holder it never lost its lid.  Somewhere there is a big gulp lid designer that said,” Okay looks good, but for an ultimate test of its spill proof properties, somebody get me a fuckin’ Ford.”