It's 4th of July!

"RotaryLover" (rotarylover) 07/04/2014 at 00:14 • Filed to: independance day

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Happy Independance day 'Mericans! Have the story of your friend, Torque. (Originally posted by !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 2010 on a Jalopnik article about the Ecoboost F150 doing 450lb-ft of torque.).

Forced induction, v8, all american...lovely combination.

My Friend Named Torque

I have a friend named Torque. He's a good friend of mine, and in the past we always shared plenty of laughs. Today, though, he's...changed.

Back when he was young, Torque was voted "Most Dependable" at Woodward Avenue High. When new people came, he was always there at the low end providing all the help he could to make sure everything went without a hitch.

But of course, like all of the "nerdy" kids in high school, Torque was always outshone by the football team's quarterback, Horsepower. HP, as most everyone called him, was much more showy. Sure, he wasn't as smart, and really didn't care to help you until the very top end of your range, but all the girls flocked to him since he had the looks.

So as my friend Torque grew up, he started to recede further and further from the limelight. Part of this is attributable to the fact that normal people didn't quite know what to make of him. When someone hears "Horsepower," they can instantly picture a horse pulling something heavy, and think of the sheer power involved. But when someone hears "Torque," they usually think of a skin disease or those funny-shaped screws.

Once Torque matured and entered the working world, he decided to go into the accounting department. HP, of course, ended up in "marketing." While HP always garnered the attention and adoration of the general public, Torque was down in the depths of the Power Company's organization. Occasionally he'd get one of those spot awards, earning him a gift certificate to Chili's. And every five years he'd get a $100 bonus for his tenure with the company. Torque still performed his job extremely well, and was always there to help out at the low end of every project. Torque always generated stellar performance numbers, but just like in high school, the cute girls flocked to HP.

At the Power Company, Torque worked closely with Pushrod, who was in the Power Delivery department. Pushrod worked just as hard as Torque, and the two formed a very close bond. Torque relied on Pushrod to make things happen, and Pushrod provided a stable system to deliver power to the customers.

One day, though, Pushrod came to Torque with some devastating news. "Well, my friend," he said, "I've just found out I'm being let go." "That's horrible!" said Torque. "What happened? It can't be your performance." "No," said Pushrod, "it's those greedy corporate marketing bastards. They've decided to outsource my job to the Overhead Cam Company in Hyderabad, India."

Torque knew what this meant for him, but tried to make the best of it. He remembered what had happened to other long-tenured employees such as Carburetor, Distributor, 8-Track, and the mail boy, Points. HP by this time was CEO of the company, his stature increasing every year as his numbers grew. HP said that nothing would change — the customers would still get their power from the same Power Company, there would be no reduction in service, and the quality would still be the same.

It was rough at first. The OHC folks said they spoke English, but the accents were extremely heavy. Certain euphemisms and acronyms meant nothing to them. Torque found himself redoing, several times, the work he gave to the OHC people, since they would constantly lose it. Additionally, the customers weren't getting the same results from the lower-end output as they used to. But HP didn't care — OHC was cheaper. His numbers were the biggest now, and the OHC folks would work into the very highest ranges without complaint.

Torque's numbers continued to remain strong, but he found himself working harder and harder, higher and higher in the power band, to keep up with HP. He began to lose more of his hair, and his stress level increased such that he is now on prescription medication for high blood pressure. But Torque continues to show up at the office every day, and works his butt off making sure that the India people don't screw things up too badly.

Torque ran into Pushrod the other day. He hadn't been able to find any work; nobody seemed interested in picking up someone so close to retirement. Kids on the street would say, "Hey, mister, aren't you Pushrod? You used to be a big star!" And he'd often reply, "I AM big. It's the engines that got small." Pushrod was fading away fast, remembered by a select few, the ones who you knew really cared about power delivery systems.

And Torque? Well, Torque has managed to hang on long enough to begin a renaissance. He always wondered whether he should have accepted an overseas assignment with the Diesel Power Company, but had too many family commitments to make that happen. Even though HP really didn't care about Torque, one day Torque was selected for a new unit in the Power Company — the Forced-air Induction Department.

When I saw Torque last week, he looked a lot better than he had. He actually had a small grin on his face, and said his career had been given a boost he needed. Because his department was still relatively new, some of the long-time, heavy-duty power users were unsure of the viability of the department.

But so long as there are people like me willing to give the Forced-air Induction Department a chance, I have a feeling my friend Torque will do just fine in the coming years.

catkam623 misses his 944 > RotaryLover 07/04/2014 at 01:25

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that was an entertaining if mildly depressing read.