Post:
You have three switches in one room and a single light bulb in another room. You are allowed to visit the room with the light bulb only once. How do you figure out which switch controls the bulb? Write your answer in the comments before looking at other answers.
Comment:
If this were an interview question, the correct response would be "Do you have any relevant questions for me? Because have a long list of things that more deserving of my precious time than to think about this!
You’re screwed, the bulb is now LED and puts off no heat.
Replace the Lightbulb with a paperclip then flip the switches until you hear the circuitbreaker trip
- Use the heat of the bulb to determine if it was on. (Shows you can memorize stupid interview questions)
- Ask a team member to coordinate with you in the other room. (You’re a team player)
- Use a cable locator (Proper tool for the trade)
- Put your phone in the other room, stream camera feed to your work laptop (The tech approach)
- Unscrew the bulb. Now you know that no switch controls the bulb (Exposing the flaw in the task’s phrasing)
- Open switch panel and disconnect one switch. Wait a day. If no one complains, disconnect the second. Wait a day. If no one complains, it’s probably the third. For good measure, disconnect the third switch. If still no one complains, remove all switches and the lightbulb, since they’re not needed anymore. (The Sysadmin approach)
Open switch panel and disconnect one switch. Wait a day. If no one complains, disconnect the second. Wait a day. If no one complains, it’s probably the third. For good measure, disconnect the third switch. If still no one complains, remove all switches and the lightbulb, since they’re not needed anymore. (The Sysadmin approach)
I used this method a few months ago in my breaker box. I needed to make room in it for an EV charger.
So, how’s the freezer doing by now?
I am the sysadmin and I approve this message.
It’s funny to read the reactions and the people not understanding that programming questions are not enough to judge you. We need people with functioning brains and that usually means problem solving skills. And sometimes the problems are fucking idiotic! Nobody cares about the light switches. We want to see how you think. We want people who don’t give up if they can’t look it up.
You think you’re hot shit because you learnt the latest trendy language? I’ve wasted entire days with people like that because they couldn’t be fucking arsed reading error messages and figuring things out by themselves.
Stupid interview questions show you nothing about how people think. Might as well ask them their astrological animal and blood type
On the contrary, someone can learn a lot from a question like this. If they immediately spit out the answer, then I know that they studied and came prepared to answer common questions like that. If they give a response like the OP, then I know they are an asshole to work with. If they don’t know, do they ask follow up questions or ask for a moment to think can tell me how well they like to work in a group. If they talk about asking a coworker vs researching a solution independently first can tell me how they may react to a brick wall of a problem. Last thing that comes to my mind, is how long they try before giving up. That can be a good indicator for how they treat work meetings - do they push through the task one at a time and in exact order, or do they have the social skills to know when it is time to shut up and move on to the next thing.
