Ridiculous interview questions 11

[haggis]

What is the most ridiculous question you’ve been asked at an interview? What was your answer?

Here’s mine. I interviewed at a major auto parts paint plant and after the interviewer seemed to be satisfied that I qualified for the job, he asked me what motivated me most to get up in the morning and go to work. I enjoy my work, but who doesn’t have some bad days.

The answer I gave was that I had a mortgage to pay and a family to feed…..a pay cheque!
He looked dumfounded for a moment then asked was that all. I said no, I also get the satisfaction of knowing I’ve earned it.

He said he appreciated my candid answer, hired me and then told me I wouldn’t believe some of the answers he got to that question.

After I got to know him, I realized that had I said something like “for the greater good of the ACME Widget Co. the next candidate would have been brought in. A trick question? Maybe, but an honest answer benefited me that time.

Haggis

 

[ctopher]

I believe it will start, but then go out. I think this was proven once with candles on the space shuttle.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP1.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

 

[BJC]

The very tip of a match contains an oxidizer and will burn under water and I suspect in space as well. I not sure of the chemicals (may be potassium chlorate). I survived a childhood where we made mini cannons and used matchheads for powder.

 

[jmw]

Corus,
could be this worked in your favour... would you have wanted to work for these guys? be tough to discover they are who they are after you've moved home etc.

Actually, there is a corollary to this; "what questions should they ask but didn't?"
How many companies actually check references, educational qualifications etc?
A company I once worked for recruited someone who was in the "too good to be true category". Almost overqualified, terrific experience. Prepared to work for them and for the money they were offering.
Of course, when, on his second day of work he didn't appear but they got a call from the police instead, they discovered it was a case of identity theft.... the guy was an ilegal imigrant who lifted his identity and cv from the internet.

Now what sort of questions would it take to expose this guy?
But of course, HR took control of the interviews and they know about as much engineering as they do about... well, about people I suppose.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[corus]

Greg wins the prize for getting the correct answer beyond the bleedingly obvious one. Hot, and thus lighter air rises in gravity and so new air is drawn in to replenish the supply of oxygen, it seems. This is why you don't see aliens smoking in sci-fi movies.


corus

 

[Rich2001]

Flames in microgravity

http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/flame.asp

Vita sine litteris mors est.

 

[techmaximus]

It seems to me that the guy answered the question correctly with, "It goes out." Short of a complete definition of the "space" maybe he should have stuck with that. When in an interview, isn't the idea to stick with short, concise, to the point answer that do not give information that was not asked for?

SCET - Techmaximus

 

[EngJW]

Very interesting, but does the match in space differentiate between a potential good employee or bad employee?

Maybe you could just tell the interviewer the the eigen values go to zero, or infinity, or whatever.

 

[plasgears]

Old Dave,

The answer to the hot cup of coffee question is to add the cream now because, at the lower temp, it would cool slower. This is an old one that was discussed in my heat transfer class many moons ago.

More important than the silly questions is what you see and hear during the interview. If it doesn't look and sound right, keep moving. Don't accept lower offers than your level. Also, interview your propective boss for his qualifications.

 

[franzh]

We covered this earlier, but it is still a riotous situation!
About 11 years ago, when I was interviewing for the position I now hold, my interviewer asked the usual barrage of questions, some logical, others not so.
The canned question, "Where would you like to be in 5 years"? My canned reply "I would like to be in your position"!
Within seconds, she got up, left the interview room, and after an amount of time, I went outside to see what happened to her. I was told that she checked out and left for the day!
I didn’t hear from this office for 6 months when I was recalled for another interview and was hired. My future boss told me that I scared my first interviewer so much that she thought that I was after her job, and promptly destroyed my files and all notes from the interview!
Word of mouth steered my future boss to me.
She quit soon after I was hired, and would never look at me in the eyes when we spoke. I didn’t realize I was that threatening!
Franz

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[casseopeia]

At my old company, we used to ask potential candidates to name their favorite movie of all time. We thought it was a stupid question at the time and so did some of the interviewees.

But, what started as a joke became a surprisingly good predictor of a person best suited for the work (building/failure investigations). It also elicited some surprisingly candid responses.

Movies liked by the best candidates oddly enough can be found on thread1088-116509 (Engineering Movies)

The two people who turned out to be the worst hires both liked the same movie, Like Water for Chocolate.

 

[EngJW]

What would they say if you liked Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

Speaking of heat transfer, there is a story around that hot water pipes will freeze before cold water pipes. People around here that come from the country claim it is true. There are several stories on the internet about it but it is still hard for me to believe. Something about the larger temperature difference in the hot pipe causes a rapid loss of heat.

 

[DRWeig]

If you told me in an interview that you liked Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I'd say "Nee! Go ye, and bring us back a shrubbery!"

That hot water / cold water pipe thing bugs me. I know it's generally the case in HVAC units that the hot will freeze first, but it's mainly because the tubes are much smaller. (Takes less water to move heat at 100 degree F approach to the air (heating) than to move heat at 20 degree F approach to the air (cooling). Less water in the coil, faster to freeze.

HOWEVER, if I put two trays of water in the freezer at the same time and one is 200 degrees F, the other 50 degrees F, the cooler one will freeze first. I have had mechanics infer the opposite from what they observe in the field.

OK, somebody shoot me down. I'm always anxious to learn!!

Fun,

Old Dave

 

[weh3]

If I were asked whether I liked it? I would plead the fifth. I am not sure I would admit to liking it; it's more that you just do it every so often for fun, like changing the head gasket in your car or something. Every time I watch the thing, I say to myself, "I can't believe I'm watching this AGAIN." Fool me once....

If I were asked how a 5-oz. bird could carry a one-pound coconut? I would suggest slinging it between the dorsal guiding feathers with a strand of creeper.

I heard the freezing rate is more related to the air entrainment of cold water. Apparently, water with no entrained air (hot water) freezes suddenly at a certain point, while the cold water freezes gradually, so it doesn't catch up. That's what I heard.

William

 

[ivymike]

Something about the larger temperature difference in the hot pipe causes a rapid loss of heat.
doesn't a hot water pipe become a cold water pipe sometime before freezing?

 

[Slugger926]

The properties of the water in the "hot water" pipe are different than the properties of the water in the "cold" water pipe. This makes a difference in the which one freezes the fastest. Think of your hot water heater as a big still, and there is a build up of minerals that will be in the hot water versus what is in the original cold water.

There are a lot of other conditions to concider. The hot water/cold water freeze problem was hashed out on another board back in January.

 

[weh3]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

 

[strokersix]

I thought the hot ice cube tray froze before the cold one back when freezers didn't defrost. They always had a thick layer of frost. A warm ice cube tray would melt down into the frost and achieve greater heat transfer from the water by virtue of surface area and also by proximity to the refrigerant.

 

[techmaximus]

In residential applications I think the reason people think that hot water freezes faster than cold water is that they observe that a hot water spigot freezes before a cold water spigot. But this occurs only because the hot side has de-aired water in the line. Water that is de-aired, previously boiled and allowed to cool, freezes first. Water that has been run through a water heater will freeze first, but not if it is still hotter than the cold water. I seriously doubt that hot water in an ice cube tray will freeze faster cold water in a same ice cube tray. Now if you boiled the water and allowed it to cool, or subjected the water to a vacuum pump and then placed it in the ice cube tray it would freeze faster. Otherwise why would ice makers be hooked up to the cold water lines?

Techmaximus

 

[GregLocock]

Ahem

http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20030930.html

"You'll be glad to know that however mysterious the phenomenon is, the Mpemba effect is put to good use by many ice-cream makers, who use warm milk instead of cool to help their ice cream freeze more quickly. "

Cheers

Greg Locock

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[HgTX]

But here's the $20,000 question: what ever happened to Erasto Mpemba? He'd be in his early 50s now.

Hg

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