A few years back, my buddy Chad and I were doing some side work on another friend of ours’ trucks, installing an airbag kit and laying the truck out on 20-inch wheels. The thing was coming out pretty cool, but we hit a snag towards the end of the project, something that we hadn’t anticipated.
Bryce, the owner of the truck, wanted three things out of the project: He wanted to keep the stock bed floor, he wanted to lay the frame on the ground and keep his mammoth rear tires. Problem was, he could only have two out of those three things. If he wanted to keep the tires and stock bed floor, he wouldn’t lay on the frame. If he wanted to lay on the frame, he could keep the tires but not keep the stock bed floor. If he laid on the frame, he could keep the stock bed floor but he’d have to lose the tires. There just wasn’t a great compromise that stood out.
It doesn’t really matter if you understand any of the preceding paragraphs or not, because I get that it’s all technical jargon. However, the Bryce Conundrum is a fairly universal concept: You want three things, but only two of them can happen, and it doesn’t matter which two they are. I run into this problem all the time, and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, or whether you’re a car guy or not. We can’t always have what we want, and sometimes we have to make a compromise.
The other day I ran into that situation with one of my clients, and I thought back to that day in the garage with Bryce and Chad, talking about the various options we had in front of us. In Bryce’s case, we ended up cutting the bed floor but keeping it as stock looking as possible, which became the best alternative for his situation. With the client though, we were stuck: there just was no easy compromise.
Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as taking out a Sawzall and getting dirty. If only that was the case.
The Bryce Conundrum
A few years back, my buddy Chad and I were doing some side work on another friend of ours’ trucks, installing an airbag kit and laying the truck out on 20-inch wheels. The thing was coming out pretty cool, but we hit a snag towards the end of the project, something that we hadn’t anticipated.
Bryce, the owner of the truck, wanted three things out of the project: He wanted to keep the stock bed floor, he wanted to lay the frame on the ground and keep his mammoth rear tires. Problem was, he could only have two out of those three things. If he wanted to keep the tires and stock bed floor, he wouldn’t lay on the frame. If he wanted to lay on the frame, he could keep the tires but not keep the stock bed floor. If he laid on the frame, he could keep the stock bed floor but he’d have to lose the tires. There just wasn’t a great compromise that stood out.
It doesn’t really matter if you understand any of the preceding paragraphs or not, because I get that it’s all technical jargon. However, the Bryce Conundrum is a fairly universal concept: You want three things, but only two of them can happen, and it doesn’t matter which two they are. I run into this problem all the time, and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, or whether you’re a car guy or not. We can’t always have what we want, and sometimes we have to make a compromise.
The other day I ran into that situation with one of my clients, and I thought back to that day in the garage with Bryce and Chad, talking about the various options we had in front of us. In Bryce’s case, we ended up cutting the bed floor but keeping it as stock looking as possible, which became the best alternative for his situation. With the client though, we were stuck: there just was no easy compromise.
Unfortunately, it’s not always as easy as taking out a Sawzall and getting dirty. If only that was the case.