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IBM's Asshole Test

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#351

Post by lupire »

ALittleLight wrote: post #325
krisoft wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The taxi driver is going to text or email HR or the hiring manager or someone? That would be indeed implausible. But not every transaction happens between undeferentiated cogs. A specific person organises the interview logistics from the company. Let’s call him Joe. When they agree with a candidate on an interview date Joe picks up the phone and calls the hotel to book a room. After that Joe calls George the truste…

Since you asked, I find a few things implausible about your story. First, taxi drivers typically work with dispatchers. They aren't scheduling their own calls or schedules - because they are busy driving. Second, in the world of "decades ago" we are pre-smartphone. How, exactly, are you going to call up the taxi driver for a chat? And don't you think the taxi driver is going to notice that he has to take a call from…

Not everyone knows that a private "black car" "car service", which is often a single car and driver, is commonly not called a "taxi".

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#352

Post by wfme »

moistly wrote: post #343
wfme wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that you would have ended up with a much better price ($0) had you not let them know at all. I'm mostly joking, but if you ignore morals I don't think this is the most sound counterpoint.

But I don’t ignore morals, so your counterpoint is moot.

Hahah right except that in this case the reward is purely intrinsic for returning to pay, while leaving without anyone knowing results in an extrinsic reward ($). "Being rewarded" is generally considered extrinsic otherwise you could just not do some bad thing and claim the feeling of knowing you didn't do the bad thing is a great reward in itself.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#353

Post by lupire »

ldoughty wrote: post #304
pmcollins wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

funny because i’ve heard of a very similar anecdote to this one but at southwest airlines.

And I'm sitting here wondering how people have bad interactions with flight attendants? Literally 90% of the words I say to them are: Hello, how are you. Thank you. Yes, water please. Have a good day. I think I asked once for a pillow (usually on Redeyes they hand them out) I've never had a fight attendant decline my request, or complain about it...

Most common thing I say is "Enough with the damn credit card ads." Abusing safety equipment to abuse a captive audience should be a crime.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#354

Post by seebs »

dfabulich wrote: post #185
dudeinjapan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had something like this too for a quant trading interview. It was one of those problems about flipping a coin, heads doubles your money and tails you lose everything, "how much would you pay to play the game?" If forget the nuance of the question but when I did the math on the whiteboard, the expected value was 1 i.e. the same amount one wagers. At that point I said, "Well, I guess I could pay for the entertainment…

That sounds almost like the St. Petersburg Paradox. (But in the paradoxical version, you keep whatever's in the pot; you don't lose everything at the end.) The St. Petersburg game has an infinite expected payout! But most people would only be willing to wager $20 or so, and it's hard to articulate exactly why. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-stpetersburg/

It's not hard to articulate why: Nearly all the large numbers are beyond what anyone can actually pay. If you assume that the bet pays out at most 4 billion dollars, and simply can't pay more than that, suddenly the expected value is $32, instead of "infinite".

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#355

Post by lupire »

zdragnar wrote: post #344
sterlind wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've started using a wheelchair recently so that's fresh on my mind. I haven't flown with it yet, but I'm nervous at the prospect of my delicate $10K power chair being smashed to bits in the cargo hold, or lost, or the flight attendants losing patience with me getting to my seat.

Are you not able to use it on the plane itself? It's been a long time since I've flown anywhere, but I seem to recall there being quite good accommodations for such things.

Wheelchairs are much bigger than airplane aisles.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#356

Post by omegaham »

ALittleLight wrote: post #325
krisoft wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The taxi driver is going to text or email HR or the hiring manager or someone? That would be indeed implausible. But not every transaction happens between undeferentiated cogs. A specific person organises the interview logistics from the company. Let’s call him Joe. When they agree with a candidate on an interview date Joe picks up the phone and calls the hotel to book a room. After that Joe calls George the truste…

Since you asked, I find a few things implausible about your story. First, taxi drivers typically work with dispatchers. They aren't scheduling their own calls or schedules - because they are busy driving. Second, in the world of "decades ago" we are pre-smartphone. How, exactly, are you going to call up the taxi driver for a chat? And don't you think the taxi driver is going to notice that he has to take a call from…

I can't speak for the rest of this story, but I will say that where I live, every taxi driver at the airport is also trying to set up their own "livery service" gig - that is, a group of regulars who frequently use them as their favorite taxi. So the part of "trusted driver" isn't dubious at all - it's totally plausible that a business would keep hiring the same driver on a predictable schedule to take candidates from the airport.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#357

Post by lupire »

skissane wrote: post #245
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to work with anyone who treats service workers like garbage, no matter what mood they are in. I have never in my life, no matter how bad or good of a day I am having, taken my frustrations out on a service worker for whatever internal/external stressors are happening to me.

I worry that this might unintentionally discriminate against culturally diverse candidates. Standards of politeness can vary between cultures (and even subcultures), and a person might behave in a way which is perceived as polite in their (sub)culture but as impolite in the culture of the service worker; an "asshole" could turn out to just be a cultural misunderstanding. Particularly if the candidate is from a minori…

> neurodiverse candidates

Indivual persons can't be "diverse". Only a population can be "diverse".

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#358

Post by DarylZero »

telchior wrote: post #228
ALittleLight wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…

That seems like an unnecessarily convoluted interpretation of a simple idea: does the candidate act like an asshole to a powerless person? OP can report back on what the bar was, but I doubt people were getting rejected simply for being aloof or untalkative. And it's unfair in the opposite direction to try to apply the "Magical Negro" trope to anyone with a blue-collar job. By that bar -- it would be better to comple…

How is it convoluted? Maybe the powerless person is a homophobe. Is that complicated or unrealistic?

This story is supposedly about an actual taxi driver, not a plant from HR. It's absurd to trust this person like this.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#359

Post by grensley »

dudeinjapan wrote: post #165
cperciva wrote: post #31

When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…

I had something like this too for a quant trading interview. It was one of those problems about flipping a coin, heads doubles your money and tails you lose everything, "how much would you pay to play the game?" If forget the nuance of the question but when I did the math on the whiteboard, the expected value was 1 i.e. the same amount one wagers. At that point I said, "Well, I guess I could pay for the entertainment…

I suspect they were looking for you to do some risk/reward analysis.

Personally, I would play one time, bet an amount of money I wouldn't be unhappy to lose and continue flipping until I were into 5 digits. On a $10 bet, that would be 10 flips, and I'd have a 1/1024 chance of pulling it off.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#360

Post by palisade »

cperciva wrote: post #31

When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…

The interview with Google is a pretty harrowing test.
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