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RichD

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Dec 31, 2011, 8:54:08 PM12/31/11
to
A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
fortune. What happened?


--
Rich

van...@vsta.org

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Jan 1, 2012, 1:38:11 AM1/1/12
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In rec.games.board RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
> fortune. What happened?

Did you know about wiki.answers.com? I didn't, but it seems like a nice
resource.

--
Andy Valencia
Home page: http://www.vsta.org/andy/
To contact me: http://www.vsta.org/contact/andy.html

Alexander Thesoso

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Jan 1, 2012, 6:24:19 AM1/1/12
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The next day another man dropped one shoe on a railroad and only lost
half his fortune.

Alan Morgan

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Jan 1, 2012, 1:26:06 PM1/1/12
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In article <07d4adac-3440-4897...@l16g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
>fortune. What happened?

This is an appallingly bad interview question. Anyone who asks it should
be ashamed of themselves.

Alan
--
Defendit numerus

Matthew Russotto

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Jan 1, 2012, 8:19:35 PM1/1/12
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In article <07d4adac-3440-4897...@l16g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
>fortune. What happened?

Trust me, knowing the stock answer to this one will NOT get you a job at
Google. However, I'd suggest that his car was an exotic and most of
his fortune was tied up in it. It broke down, so he was pushing it.
He stopped at the hotel to call his auto club, but he left it in a "no
parking" zone and it was immediately towed. The city "lost" the car,
and the insurance company refused to pay off because there was an
exclusion for acts of a civil authority.
--
The problem with socialism is there's always
someone with less ability and more need.

Don Stockbauer

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Jan 1, 2012, 11:39:54 PM1/1/12
to
> The problem with socialism is there's always
> someone with less ability and more need.

Unless everyone's exactly equal.

Torben Ægidius Mogensen

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Jan 2, 2012, 6:32:09 AM1/2/12
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RichD <r_dela...@yahoo.com> writes:

> A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
> fortune. What happened?

He played Monopoly.

I heard that one 30 years ago, and it was probably old already then.

And, as others have said, answering it shows nothing about skill or
intelligence. Since it is that old, a lot of peaople will have heard it
already and don't need to deduce or guess the answer. And highly
intelligent and skillful people may never have played Monopoly and,
hence, would have no way of guessing the answer.

The moral is: If you want job interview questions to tell you something
useful, make up your own (so people won't have heard the answer before)
and keep them relevant to the job topic. In particular, avoid
popular-culture references. Unless the job is as a writer of Jeopardy
questions.

Torben

Remysun

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Jan 2, 2012, 8:17:23 PM1/2/12
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On Dec 31 2011, 8:54 pm, RichD <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
> fortune.  What happened?

He was late for an appointment.

Myron Buck

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Jan 23, 2012, 2:56:33 AM1/23/12
to
Or unless we assume all men are created equal...

van...@vsta.org

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Jan 24, 2012, 4:35:40 PM1/24/12
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In rec.games.board Myron Buck <mb...@hkis.edu.hk> wrote:
> Or unless we assume all men are created equal...

Equal but not identical.

RichD

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Feb 9, 2012, 6:44:16 PM2/9/12
to
On Jan 1, amor...@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Morgan) wrote:
> >A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
> >fortune.  What happened?
>
> This is an appallingly bad interview question.  Anyone
> who asks it should be ashamed of themselves.

Why?

--
Rich

Gene Wirchenko

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Feb 19, 2012, 10:37:49 PM2/19/12
to
Because it relies on an aha! Such are unpredictable. In
addition, if the person does not know the game Monopoly and, in
particular, one of the editions that has a car token, he will never
get it.

This makes it not reliably indicative of ability.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

BruceS

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Feb 20, 2012, 11:14:45 AM2/20/12
to
On Feb 19, 8:37 pm, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Feb 2012 15:44:16 -0800 (PST), RichD
>
> <r_delaney2...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >On Jan 1,  amor...@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Alan Morgan) wrote:
> >> >A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
> >> >fortune.  What happened?
>
> >> This is an appallingly bad interview question.  Anyone
> >> who asks it should be ashamed of themselves.
>
> >Why?
>
>      Because it relies on an aha!  Such are unpredictable.  In
> addition, if the person does not know the game Monopoly and, in
> particular, one of the editions that has a car token, he will never
> get it.
>
>      This makes it not reliably indicative of ability.

And here I thought it was because there are so many answers that would
fit, making the "right" answer no better than many others. But your
reason is good too.

So why do so many (not terribly bright) people come up with "puzzles"
like this, so poorly thought out, and present them as if they were
clever? Is it like the newly toilet-trained child who mistakenly
thinks the goal is to show feces to his parent, and so triumphantly
brings a sample to mom in the kitchen?

If you want to see the same sort of mental midgets attempting to
parade their giantism, check out comp.lang.c. Someone keeps posting
programming puzzles there with about the same degree of cleverness.

Mark Brader

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Feb 20, 2012, 1:57:37 PM2/20/12
to
>>>>> A man pushed a car to a hotel, and lost his
>>>>> fortune. What happened?
>>
>>>> This is an appallingly bad interview question. Anyone
>>>> who asks it should be ashamed of themselves.

>> Because it relies on an aha! Such are unpredictable.

No, that's exactly the point; they want people who can do that.
It's still a bad interview question because it's been around for
years and someone might get it because they'd seen the answer before,
*without* ever having been able to aha! it.

>> In addition, if the person does not know the game Monopoly and, in
>> particular, one of the editions that has a car token, he will never
>> get it.

Yes, that too.

>> This makes it not reliably indicative of ability.
>
> And here I thought it was because there are so many answers that would
> fit, making the "right" answer no better than many others.

No; if one has the right knowledge, the right answer is obvious.

> So why do so many (not terribly bright) people come up with "puzzles"
> like this, so poorly thought out, and present them as if they were
> clever?

It's fine as a puzzle; what it's bad as is an *interview question*.

Followups directed to rec.puzzles only.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | I usually sign my name "J O backspace o h n"
m...@vex.net | -- John Chew

My text in this article is in the public domain.
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