Remember the first few months after getting your driver’s license? For some it meant convenience, for others it meant freedom. Once the DMV punched your ticket there were probably a lot of unnecessary trips that you didn’t mind taking. Whatever the case, it probably took a little bit of experience before really understanding why you shouldn’t let the fuel tank get too low.
People can give you all the advice they want to, but sometimes lessons don’t sink in until you experience them for yourself. I’d heard “don’t let the gas tank fall below half in the winter,” but I didn’t take it to heart until one winter morning I couldn’t get the car to start because of the condensation that had frozen in the fuel system. Okay, lesson learned, but that’s in the winter. When temperatures are safely above freezing, it was okay to flirt with the lower hashmarks on the gauge, wasn’t it?
Well when I was low on gas I’d start driving more conservatively until I could get to a gas station. Maybe not drive so aggressively, drop the speed a little bit, use lower RPMs, accelerate slower, and if it was really bad, coast down the hills. I don’t recall ever having a problem with low fuel…until I used someone else’s car.
I forget what the situation was, but I was driving someone else’s vehicle, and it was low on gas. It was in the same area where I normally drove though, so I was confident I could get where I needed to go.
On the drive, I came up to a long hill that I must’ve driven a hundred times before, but as I drove uphill, the engine started stuttering. “What’s this?! I know it’s low on gas, but this hill is something it should be able to handle!”
As it turns out, the two vehicles were built differently. This car apparently had a fuel line that connected to the front of the gas tank. On paper, that makes perfect sense…if you’re mass producing something, you want to use the least amount of materials and make the design as simple as possible. In reality though, when that particular model climbs uphill on an almost-empty tank, all the gas moves to the back of the tank and the fuel line starts sucking air. The laughable silver lining to that dark cloud is that if you somehow manage to sputter to the top and start going downhill, the engine gets the gas it needs…when gravity is already there to help you coast down.
My car, on the other hand, had a fuel line that connected to the back of the tank. You see, someone had enough engineering sense to say “boy, you know, if the gas is really low, the driver can get up the hill and then coast down the other side, even if the engine dies.”
It’s impossible to measure just how much heartache, hitchhiking, and walking that simple feature has spared people worldwide. You probably never even thought about it (hopefully because you don’t let the tank get that low). That’s okay, you didn’t have to think about it, because someone else did.
What about you? What area of work, your personal interests, or other aspect of life do you look at and say “boy, you know, if we just made this basic modification, it could net a major advantage”? You and the folks on your team could be poised to make a small change that has an outsized impact, one that people in the future don’t even think about because it’s so brilliant they take it for granted.
The world rarely moves forward in leaps and bounds; don’t be afraid to be a part of making incremental improvements that add up to big gains over time. Someone will be glad you spoke up.