asking candidates how to transport an elephant, a 10-year leak by my desk, and more

by Alison Green on November 7, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss wants to ask interviewees how to transport an elephant

I have recently moved teams into a slightly more senior management role. We have just received approval to recruit two new staff and I am responsible for all leading the recruitment process. This is an area I have plenty of experience in and I feel confident in my skills.

My manager asked to review my interview questions. I was fine with this as it’s my first time interviewing on behalf of this team. He asked me to include his favorite interview question: “If I asked you to transport an elephant from Edinburgh to Bristol, how would you do it?” I laughed as I thought he was joking. He was not.

I am recruiting medical administrators. I explained this question has nothing to do with the role or the job description and is not competency based. I asked what answer he would be looking for and he just said he’s interested in how their brain works. Help me explain to him why this question sucks.

Questions like these — often called brain teasers — used to be popular among some interviewers. The idea was supposed to be for candidates to talk you through how they’d approach solving the problem, thus giving you a better sense of how their brains worked (just as your boss said). It was supposed to be less about the final answer and more about how the person worked through the problem.

Brain teasers have largely fallen out of fashion ever since Google famously stopped using them; they had used them for years but stopped when their own data showed that candidates’ answers weren’t at all predictive of how successful they’d be as an employee. Their head of HR told the New York Times, “We found that brain teasers are a complete waste of time … They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”

You might show your boss that article, as well as this one going into more detail about Google’s findings.

2. There’s been a leak at my desk for 10 years

It’s a rainy Monday morning, and there’s currently a trash can directly behind my chair, collecting a steady drip of water from the ceiling.

I work on the second floor of a 15-ish story building, and this happens every time it rains. Don’t ask me why this is the floor that leaks, either. It’s just a weird office enigma.

This has been going on since I started here, nearly 10 years ago. They tried to fix it way back then (someone else was actually sitting in this spot in those days). They’ve patched the ceiling various times in subsequent years. They’ve stood behind me and stared at it for a while. But literally nothing has stopped it, or even slightly altered the pattern.

I don’t know the specifics of what they have actually done to try and mitigate the issue, if I’m honest. I just send an email to say it’s leaking agin, and sometimes someone will come look at it. Or not. Sometimes I’ll just have an extra trash can at my desk after a particularly rainy weekend. It’s a big campus. I’m guessing it’s not a priority, or maybe not the only leak.

It’s far enough away from me that it’s not actually dripping on me, or my desk, and we’ve moved necessary office equipment away from that spot. It isn’t actively preventing me from doing my work and I could probably move my desk if I really needed to, though I like sitting next to the window.

Aside from being mildly annoying, it’s not something I can’t handle (I might start collecting the rain to water my plants). But I have reached a curiosity tipping point. So I’m wondering … does my company have an obligation to fix this? What are the rules around stuff like that?

I’m not an OSHA expert, but from what I can tell, this would potentially be an OSHA violation if it leads to water on the floor (a slipping hazard), mold or mildew, or damage to the ceiling support grid. If you want to find out for sure, you can file an anonymous report with OSHA. Be sure to specifically say you’re concerned about employees’ safety.

3. How do I handle a constantly negative coworker?

I work at a small company across from a coworker who I usually get along with. However, she’s often negative, almost like a human Eeyore. She works in a position where she sees the numbers, and sometimes during the slower season she’ll make a comment like, “Whoa, it’s really slow, they’re going to have to lay people off soon” or “I’ve never seen it this low, I’m not billing much at all, how are we going to keep the doors open?”

I’m not naive, I am aware of these factors (and have started low key looking as a result,) but the constant harping on this and griping about other matters is exhausting. What does she expect me to do about it? I really would rather not dwell on it. We are all doing what we can to keep things going. It’s a small office so I don’t want to alienate her, but I also can’t handle the constant negativity.

I’ve tried to say “I can’t focus on that” or something of that nature but she continues. Is there a kind yet clear way I can redirect, or do I just need to try to tune her out?

Sometimes a complete lack of engagement with the gloom will work — meaning that she says something gloomy and you say, “Ah, well. I better get back to work.” Or, “Ah, well. Oh, I wanted to ask you about ____ (insert topic change).”

If that doesn’t work, you can try being more direct. For example: “I find it hard to focus on work after you say things like that. I’d be grateful if you didn’t speculate on stuff like that to me; it really throws me.”

4. Writing a novel about my industry

I have written a novel. It’s completely fictional but it is set in the industry that I work in, and I draw a lot on my industry knowledge to make the scenarios realistic. There’s also some exploration of the challenges of working in that industry, although I’d say overall the tone is positive.

I’d really like to try and publish it but I’m wondering if this could jeopardize my day job. I work for a company that provides professional services — I wouldn’t say it’s a tiny community, but there are a lot of people who recognize my name and know what I do. I’d publish under a pseudonym but I’m not sure if it could still become known. My concern is whether clients would think it’s about them (it’s not) or whether my employer would just see it as a conflict.

I’m considering going to HR, but wondering if I’m overthinking this. Surely people write novels relating to their field of work all the time? If I brought it to HR they would probably want some higher-ups to read it and it’s sort of in the “spicy romance” category and that’s just not how I want to be seen professionally at my day job. Any insight?

Are you revealing proprietary company information, badmouthing clients (even in the abstract), making the field as a whole look bad, or making yourself appear like someone clients wouldn’t want to work with? If the answer to any of these is yes, there’s a high risk of this being a problem (understandably so). Otherwise, though, in a lot of fields this would be a complete non-issue.

To be entirely safe, though, you’d need to run it by your company … but then of course you risk them telling you no. The counter-argument to that is that if you’re publishing under a pseudonym, there’s a decent chance they’ll never hear about it (especially if you consider the fate of most published books, which do not circulate widely). But it’s still smart to plan for the possibility that they will, and at that point the question might be whether you’re better off asking for forgiveness rather than permission. I don’t know without more info, but if you pressed me for an answer, I’d say that given that there’s a non-zero chance they’ll learn about it, life will be easier for you if you get their okay ahead of time, or wait to seek publication until after you’ve left.

Also, how spicy are we talking about? If it’s your typical romance level of spice, I’m not super concerned about that; people are aware romance novels with adult scenes exist. But if sex is the central focus, I’d be more hesitant.

5. Is it OK to disclose a disability during a hiring process to make sure I can actually do the job?

Recently I interviewed for a technical administrator position that would have been 100% office work. I was one of three finalists, but they decided to go with someone else. However, the same company has reached out saying I would be a great fit for a full technical position and I am very interested.

However, the technical position would require a good bit of field work, which can be hard on me as I have a disability. From what I have been told so far about it, I should be able to handle the field work (though I might need a cane or walking stick for support) but I’m nervous about whether there might be aspects to it no one thought to mention, since they don’t know about my limitations.

Normally, it isn’t something I would disclose until hired, but would it be appropriate to say, “I have a disability, what has been described to me so far is all doable but I want to make sure we are on the same page so I won’t be a few days in and realize I physically cannot do the job”?

Wait until you have the offer so that there’s much less risk of discrimination, unconscious or otherwise. At that point, it’s fine to use the language you proposed (although I’d leave off everything after “on the same page” and then describe the limitations you think could end up being relevant). Good luck!

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  1. Daria grace*

    #1, you can find out how people’s brains work using questions actually relevant to the work. One I got at a recent interview was something like “if we asked you to prepare a report in software you’d never used before, how would you go about working it out?.” Asking nonsensical ones just serves to stress already nervous people out, is incredibly subjective (would an answer that focused on elephant welfare be better than one that focused on efficiency) and doesn’t tell you if they are good at solving problems in ways that would actually align with business policies and priorities. It also risks prioritising people who like debating and arguing silly stuff which may be an unhelpful or annoying trait

    1. Maglev to Crazytown*

      I have gotten nonsensical types of questions, and I don’t mind them because it also gives the interview a little insight into the person’s personality. Are they stressed or nervous about the question… or do they good-naturedly just roll with it? That at least shows a little about the attitude a person will have when tackling an inevitable business-related curveball. I actually like receiving those questions, because it can be a really great way of establishing rapport, as well as if it is a group of people you’d want to work with. (i.e., I would be a giant red flag to me if they were ultra serious, stuffy and deadpan about it).

      1. Edwina*

        In a stressful situation like an interview, I’m not sure that sort of thing would give you insight into how a person would/might be to work with. Ever since I started reading AAM, I’m much less nervous in interviews, but it’s still not the same as being at work everyday interacting with people.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        I’m not convinced it does show that much about the attitude a person will have when tackling a business related curveball. Being good at small talk and banter and brain teasers really isn’t the same skill set as being competent and relaxed at one’s job. Yeah, there are some people who are easily stressed in all situations and some people who seem to ride anything calmly, but there are a high number of people who are calm and competent in some situations and flustered in others.

        I guess if one was interviewing for a spokesperson job or something like that, it would be helpful to know how somebody reacts when thrown verbal curveballs, but in a lot of roles I doubt it has much relevance.

        There are some people who really talk a good game and would be able to give smooth, perfect answers in a situation like that, appearing completely relaxed but put them in a situation where they are thrown a curveball at work and their talent would be at talking their way out of responsibility or sounding really confident while downplaying the seriousness of the issue and proceeding to ignore it. On the other hand, there are people who might not have great conversational skills and wouldn’t know how to respond to something like that but who might be very skilled, confident and relaxed in their area of expertise.

        I’m not sure there’s much connection between how stressed and nervous a person gets at a weird question and how stressed and nervous they get at workplace problems, unless their job requires them to field weird questions.

        1. Rex Libris*

          This. Malcolm Gladwell has actually talked about how interviewing well doesn’t correlate to success at the actual job. My own experience is that the only thing you can tell about a lot of people who sound like rock stars in the interview is that they think they’re rock stars.

          1. Wilbur*

            Was that in one of his books? I’d be interested in reading it. I’ve been interviewing a lot of potential interns recently, the way I look at it is the resume screen proves their technical ability and the interview showcases their preparation and communication ability.

            1. Rex Libris*

              I’ve seen him bring it up in a couple of videos, and I think he may have done a podcast episode about it, but I don’t remember it from any of his books, at least in the ones I’ve read.

            2. Pescadero*

              Talking to Strangers.

              He also discusses it in the article “The New-Boy Network” in the New Yorker.

          2. Elle Woods*

            Yeah. One of the worst hires I’ve dealt with was a man who presented himself really well in interviews and had solid references. The company hired him and all was OK for a while. Then it became obvious to us that he was not all he’d presented himself to be. It was a long slog to get rid of him.

            1. Turquoisecow*

              One of the most incompetent coworkers I ever had apparently interviewed extremely well. She interviewed for a basic data entry job and the boss was concerned she was too good for it so she recommended her to my boss, and he was “blown away” and hired her for my department, which was also data entry but with a bit more thinking about the data before entering it. She had zero confidence and constantly came to me or someone else before doing anything, could not make a decision on her own and constantly made the wrong decisions. Both the managers who interviewed her tried to coach her because they were convinced she was brilliant and just needed more time.

              1. MassMatt*

                Con artists tend to have great people skills.

                I’d say interviewing well takes some verbal skills, which many if not most jobs need to some degree–sales and customer service more than people analyzing spreadsheets.

              2. Lola*

                Unfortunately, earlier in my career I was hoodwinked by a few candidates in interviews who were super smooth talkers, charming, etc. “Blown away” was the exact term I used, but all of them ended up being total nightmares – at least two of them showed themselves completely unfit for not just the role, but the field as a whole, and had to be told that. I still have guilt about unleashing those folks on my coworkers.

                If you have a fun and engaging personality, that’s great, but now I’m more interested in people who demonstrate experience and skills that will be applied on a daily basis in the job.

          3. Starbuck*

            This is probably true, but Malcolm Gladwell seems to have a penchant for speaking on things where he doesn’t actually understand the research and distorts when he goes to try and interpret it so I’d take his pronouncements with a big grain of salt!

        2. Mairead*

          “There are some people who really talk a good game…”

          I recently worked with one of those and he was utterly unbelievably useless at doing his actual job. He would promise the sun, moon and stars but then nothing would happen.
          So. many. excuses.
          Apparently, people who interviewed him were quite impressed. I confidently predict he will continue to fail upwards in his career. Sigh.

        3. Texan In Exile*

          Exactly. I am a horrible interviewer but I am fabulous at my job.

          That is, I am very bad at on-the-spot BSing, which is why when the McKinsey recruiter told me, after I used the words “I don’t know but I know how to find out” to answer his question about the potential market size for windshield wipers to be sold at gas stations, that he loved me to death but I was not right for the job, he was correct.

          If the job is be able to make stuff up in high-stress situations, I am not right for the job.

          But if you want someone to build something out of nothing with almost no resources and have solid results quickly, that’s me.

          PS If you are ever in an interview like that, you start with, “Well the population of the US [or wherever] is X. If we assume Y% have a car, that means Z cars. And if we assume wipers need to be replaced every B months/years,” and so on. It’s not about being right. It’s about sounding right.

      3. daffodil*

        TBH my tendency to good-naturedly roll with whatever and have fun with it makes me fun to work with, yes, but also inefficient and easily distractable. I think the personality aspects a question like that showcases are neutral to job performance.

      4. QuiteQuiteContrary*

        @maglev Interesting. I, on the other hand, would stand up, shake their hand, and say “thank you for letting me know up front you’re more interested in toying with people who aren’t supposed to talk back to you than finding someone qualified for the job. I appreciate you not wasting any more of my time.”

        These questions are also very biased toward cishet white males who had cushy upbringings and lots of time to josh with their fellow lads about nonsensical shit like this.

        2. Timothy (TRiG)*

          My answer to the specific question about transporting an elephant would be that it’s a solved problem. Zoos exist, and they sometimes transport elephants. There are existing experts who do this. So in the case that I needed to do it, I would reach out to them. Because reality is complicated, and if I try to do it myself, no matter how hard I plan, I’ll run into problems I had not anticipated. This is not a scenario in which reinventing wheels is warranted.

          For a programming job, this might actually count as a good answer, depending on what way the interviewer’s brain works, which of course I’d be taking a gamble on. And that gamble, leading to second-guessing oneself as one speaks, is one of the reasons why these are not good questions.

          1. The OG Sleepless*

            Yeah, I was idly wargaming the elephant question myself, and my answer was “ask the nearest zoo how they do it, ask the UK version of the USDA if there are any legal barriers to transporting livestock from Bristol to Edinburgh (like crossing state lines in the US).” In other words, I don’t know, so I’ll ask someone who does. Just like any normal person who gets tasked with something they don’t know how to do. It wouldn’t be a very productive question.

          2. LL*

            This is exactly how I would do it. There are already people who know how to do it and I’d let them do it instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

          3. pocket microscope*

            Right, this is my answer too. There are people who already know how to do this, so I would ask them rather than unleashing my inexperience on a living animal.

      5. LL*

        It would just cause me freeze and not be able to think of an answer because I wouldn’t be expecting it. I also hate stuff like this, it’s similar to a brain teaser, and I hate those. I’d just say I’d call an company that can transport animals and make them do it.

      6. MassMatt*

        But the interviewee has no idea if you want an “OK, this is silly, but…” answer or a very serious “calculate the load bearing required for the ramp” type answer.

        It sounds like you nd maybe the LW want the former, but the LW’s boss wants the latter.

        Interviewees should not have to use augury and divining skills to figure out what type of answer to give

    2. ferrina*

      Yeah, I’ve used problem solving exercises around likely scenarios (both as an interviewer and when I was being interviewed). That was really helpful, because you can see how this person thinks about actual scenarios that they would actually be expected to solve, and you can make sure they solve them in the way you want.

      It can also be very effective at screening: One role I interviewed for involved doing payroll as well as other duties. The interviewer gave an example where there were too many duties to be done in a day, including things like client work, payroll, and internal commitments. I replied that I would do payroll first, since there’s legal implications and also no one will work for a company that doesn’t pay them on time. The interviewer sighed in relief and said that was the correct answer, and that many candidates had screened out because they prioritized payroll last.

      2. QuiteQuiteContrary*

        @ferrina — golly, here’s an idea — how about posing a question about (in your own words) “actual scenarios that they would actually be expected to solve” ….unless of course you’re in the elephant transport business. FFS.

        1. Analytical Tree Hugger*

          Um…what?

          That’s…exactly what @ferrina suggested doing, instead of what the boss from the letter is wanting to do.

          “I’ve used problem solving exercises around likely scenarios (both as an interviewer and when I was being interviewed).”

          No elephants or other outlandish scenarios were mentioned in the comment.

        2. Lydia*

          I think you’re missing that what ferrina does is actually relevant to the job they’re interviewing candidates for. Take a breath and maybe step back for a minute.

      3. MigraineMonth*

        I’m a software developer, and my technical interview questions have ranged from “write code to efficiently search a web page for every occurrence of a string of characters; by the way, the web page is in French” to “explain the difference between passing-by-reference and a passing-by-value” to “how would you update servers in a datacenter if the datacenter were on the moon”.

        The hands-down best interview, in my opinion, was a guy who said he wanted my suggestions on a problem he’d run into a couple of weeks before, and we spent 45 minutes discussing a real challenge until I understood it, brainstorming various possible ways to solve it, and weighing the real costs and benefits of each method. Basically, the interviewer treated me as if I were a coworker and instead of putting me on the spot to solve something independently and get it “right”, we worked through the issue together.

        That’s how you actually find out a) how someone’s mind works in the job you want to hire them for and b) a bit about how they’d work in a team. Not some weird thought exercise, half of which are “gotcha” questions (“Oh, you light *both* ends of the string!”) rather than actual problem-solving anyway.

        1. Hroethvitnir*

          Man, that would be great. We all know there’s no comparison between a bizarre hypothetical and a fully fleshed out, real life problem.

          1. MigraineMonth*

            Just being able to apply a smidgin of common sense was such a relief. Turns out there’s an enormous difference between framing a problem as “We have a lot of RAM but need this to run fast” and “Optimize for performance and assume unlimited memory” (which is only ever hypothetical).

    3. Annony*

      Yeah. The real answer for most people is “I wouldn’t do it. That is far outside of my scope of expertise and job responsibilities.” And realistically you don’t want people taking on expensive tasks that they are unqualified for and are unrelated to the company’s/organization’s mission.

      If I were asked to move an elephant, my first step would be to try to figure out why a children’s hospital has an elephant and who thought the genetics lab should be responsible for it. And then transfer that responsibility elsewhere.

      1. Hannah Lee*

        Exactly!

        When I read that question, my first thought would be I would simply hire a existing company whose business is transporting large animals for zoos, rescues etc.

        Because tasks that involve risk to life and limb (for people and the elephant) and general public safety should NOT be attempted by people with no experience.

      2. Kitty King*

        I did this in an interview once. The question was “What would you do if a donor offered a million dollars but you had to paint this semi-historical building purple?” I said I would clarify my role and then introduce that person to the director, who handles all large financial donations. The interviewer gave me a blank stare until I continued answering as if I would actually be involved.

        I did not get the job.

        1. Jill Swinburne*

          Mind you, I don’t know what role you were interviewing for, but that would be a seriously interesting question to ask communications advisers. You think I jest, but I once worked in an historic building and had to write a comms plan around removal of the ivy on the outside of it (it was pretty and frequently photographed, and at that point iconic, but it was also ruining the brickwork).

      3. Thegs*

        Absolutely my first thought as well. There are useful insights to asking someone how they would resolve an extraordinary situation; at my previous job we had to copy 10 Petabytes of storage to a warm backup site. Getting insight on how someone would resolve that is useful (what questions do they ask, do they go immediately to sneakernet or do they get hung up on the WAN capabilities). Asking someone how to do something outside the scope of their jobs and expertise is just testing them on how good of a story teller they are.

      4. Jackalope*

        I used to work for a zoo, so I actually had practical ideas on how to do this! At this point honestly my response would be to contact zookeepers that I’m in touch with so they can help me get in touch with the people who actually do the elephant moving, but it honestly took me a minute to realize that for most people this question would be out of left field!

    4. T2*

      I am in IT, and for years I have used a two similar IT based questions. But the goal was not to figure out how their brain works.

      The first question is describing an issue that was very obscure and technical. The goal is to figure out how their troubleshooting process works, and more importantly, if they will attempt to BS their way out of a pickle.

      The second question is iPhone or Android? The goal with this is to figure out how they communicate the relative strengths and weaknesses of a specific problem.

      So I have specific things I want to understand about candidates.

      Figuring out how someone’s brain works is silly for the reasons Google found out.

      1. Blackbeard*

        Many years ago, I got asked, as an interview question, to estimate how many people are born in the world every day. This was for a Java developer job for a bank. *eye roll*

        1. Wilbur*

          Sounds like a Fermi question, which can be fun but the connection to banking or Java seem tenuous at best. For people that haven’t heard of Fermi questions, they’re named after Enrico Fermi, a scientist who worked on the atomic bomb. He accurately estimated the size of an atomic blast by dropping little scraps of paper and estimating how far the blast pushed them. There are competitions around this, based on the idea that you can draw from your limited knowledge to estimate the answer to a question. I could see that ability being useful for some jobs, but I’d guess people in banking would give you the side eye if you told them you didn’t know the answer so you just estimated.

          1. Bruce*

            I worked in a physics lab as a student and our P.I. liked to do these sorts of questions, though usually it was as a spot check of whether the results we were getting from the equipment made sense, and not as a brain teaser.

            1. Guacamole Bob*

              It’s a very useful way of thinking for people who work with data, at least in some contexts! But as a random interview question it’s pretty annoying. Even “We like to see how people approach estimating unknown quantities to check for reasonableness of their answer. How would you approach estimating the number of piano tuners in Chicago?” would be much better.

              1. Bruce*

                Right, at least with my P.I. he was figuring out something real and useful, but his style about it was a bit performative :-)

          2. LL*

            But even in Fermi’s case, the question he needed to answer was directly relevant to his job. Both “how would you transport an elephant” and “how big is an atomic bomb blast” have exactly zero to do with my job and I wouldn’t want to have to figure them out.

            Also, the type of person who goes in theoretical physics tends to like to do this type of thinking, so they might not mind it, although I suspect they would also balk at answering a brain teaser that’s about something they don’t care about.

    5. Guacamole Bob*

      People love to complain about rigid scripted question interviews for government jobs, but having to write all the questions in advance and have someone in HR review them does mean that these irrelevant questions would get thrown out.

      1. Selina Luna*

        Oh my gosh, I LOVE rigid scripted questions in interviews. I work as a teacher, and every teaching job I’ve ever had started with a panel interview that included rigid, scripted questions. I think that having the same questions for everyone, having the questions assessed by HR and legal, and ensuring that the questions about problem solving ask the interviewee to specifically solve a problem that might actually come up, is a great way to help ensure equity in hiring.

    6. LaminarFlow*

      An interviewer once asked me if I’m a chair or a sofa. I responded that I’m a woman, and this question tells me this company isn’t where I want to work. I left shortly after that.

      I realize the interviewer was asking me if I work best in a solo setting, or as part of a team, but why not just ask direct questions? It was ridic.

      This happened about 15 years ago, and I heard through multiple sources that they had such terrible financials, that they were paying vendors with office furniture. At least they stuck to a theme before they tanked.

      1. picketline*

        I’m weirdly curious, which one is which?? I feel like the answer is “supposed” to be that the sofa is the team player but then again – you often only have one sofa at a time, whereas you frequently have chairs in places where there are lots of other chairs around. So maybe the chair is actually the team player?

        1. Margaret Cavendish*

          And, what kind of chair? Probably an armchair given the comparison to a sofa, but what about an office chair, a kitchen chair, a patio chair? I could BS my way through this kind of thing for hours, but I doubt it’s going to tell them much about how well I perform a data analysis.

      2. Blackbeard*

        I’d have interpreted the question as “are you a spartan (chair) or sybaritic (sofa) kind of person?”

    7. Doreen*

      Yes, there’s a really big difference between asking a nonsensical question and a realistic question. A question I saw used once in a promotional interview involved a crowded waiting room and a telephoned bomb threat , which was a realistic scenario for that job. There were a few absolutely incorrect answers ( such as the person whose first step was to figure out why the waiting room was crowded) but it was actually useful to know how someone might react without being able to look up the actual policy. ( The objective was not to see if they exactly memorized the policy , but to see if they evacuated the office and called the police as the first steps, rather than looking up the policy or calling the manager)

    8. Serious Silly Putty*

      Yes to the part about prioritizing the wrong things! I think a question like that would be a hoot… but I also found it fun to take the GRE. My husband and I spent a road trip trying to recall the pound-per-door pressure of water based on things we remember (“a pints a pound the world around”) just for laughs. Puzzles are fun for me, and I’m comfortable talking in hand-wavy hypotheticals. And that skill/natural disposition HAS come in handy… but not as much as, say, being able to think through the logistics of an actual event. Not to mention the fact that I am HORRIBLE at data entry, but the person at work who is best at this is exactly the kind of person who would freeze on a question like this.

    9. Abraham Wald*

      I’m in a job where we get unexpected questions, so it’s fair to ask in our interview. Yet we know to ask questions that are analytical and reasonable. Not so much the “How many piano tuners are there in Kansas?” and more “Which of these search patterns would be most useful in which scenarios? How would you calculate their effectiveness?”
      (Wald’s work on WWII aircraft is a great example – returning aircraft had a lot of bullet holes on the tail and wings, and the military wanted to reinforce those areas to reduce the number of holes there. Wald pointed out that the best places to reinforce are those *without any* bullet holes, because those areas were so critical that the planes were much more vulnerable there (engines). Very obvious when you understand the reasons, but not initially)
      We’re also big fans of the Monty Hall problem and I’d worry about hiring someone who didn’t understand it (You are on a gameshow and choose one of 3 random doors, where one contains a prize. The host then eliminates a door that definitely doesn’t have a prize. You can then choose to switch to another door – should you? The statistics answer is absolutely yes)

      1. Best Coke Ever*

        Unless your job involves statistics, why is the Monty Hall problem something you’d use against a candidate?

        1. metadata minion*

          It’s also one of the more famous statistics problems out there. I know only the very basics of formal statistics, and even though I’ve had the Monty Hall problem explained several times, I don’t really *get* it, but I know the right answer.

          1. SarahKay*

            I recall a long email debate between myself and a few friends about the Monty Hall problem, with most of us being definite that there’s no benefit in switching and one person stubbornly pointing out that the rest of us were wrong, wrong, oh-so-wrong.
            We’re all maths/science/engineering graduates and all but Mr Stubborn were indeed wrong, wrong, oh-so-wrong.
            I accept *intellectually* that yes, one should switch doors, but honestly, it still *feels* wrong to do so.

            1. Lexi Vipond*

              Emotionally I think it would hurt more to have had the right door and moved away from it, than to never have had it, however logical it is to change.

          2. Modesty Poncho*

            I never understood it until I saw an example in the game Zero Time Dilemma, with ten doors. It isn’t that Monty is opening, at random, *one* of the goat doors. It’s that he’s opening *all but one*. Taking the chance from 1/10 to 1/2 made it make a lot more sense.

        2. Tiny clay insects*

          Yeah, the Monty Hall problem is famously counterintuitive and lots of intelligent people get it wrong.

        3. Abraham Wald*

          I’m only responsible for hiring people who know statistics and that’s unlikely to change.

      2. Vanamonde von Mekkhan*

        “You can then choose to switch to another door – should you?”

        That depends entirely on whether you want a goat or a car. :)

    10. learnedthehardway*

      Agreed. There are plenty of ways to test how people think and whether they can problem solve, that are relevant (and thus useful for evaluation purposes) to the role.

      Using a job-relevant question also eliminates the inherent biases and unrecognized vagueness that can creep into these things. eg. “How many marbles would fit into a Volvo?” Well, that presupposes the candidate is familiar with marbles and knows what a Volvo is and roughly how big. And the person may very well NOT know.

      Whereas asking how someone would solve a problem relevant to the job means you know not only about their problem solving skills, but whether they are familiar with the job requirements too.

    11. Mentally Spicy*

      It can also inadvertently screen out neuro diverse people. I’m on the spectrum and, like many people with autism, I LOATHE ludicrous hypothetical questions. Not “what would you do if [hypothetical work-based issue] happened” (although there are people who are lower-functioning than I who WOULD struggle even with that question. My son is one of those.)

      But the elephant question, the “what kind of tree/animal/etc are you” question, the “fox and the chicken” riddle, basically anything that forces me to envisage either a totally impossible situation or at least one that I would never experience, I find impossible to answer. And would actually make me annoyed that my time and mental energy were being wasted.

      1. Jill Swinburne*

        Nah, I’m neurovanilla and I also hate those. Who cares what breed of dog I am? And, also, it depends on the situation and setting.

      2. Lilac*

        Yeah, I’m neurodivergent and my knee jerk reaction to the transporting and elephant one would be “Well, I wouldn’t be transporting an elephant because unless someone gave me a permit I’m going to get arrested”, and then I’d start rambling about the process of acquiring the appropriate paperwork. Not exactly the flashiest, most inspiring interviewee response.

    12. NaoNao*

      I’m also really tired of this odd management/leadership tendency to “figure out how [my] brain works”. Focus on the work, deliverables, results, and skills/experience! I’m Neurodiverse and every single boss I’ve ever had that focused on “how [my] brain works” wound up firing me after increasingly uncomfortable and crappy interactions, even if they swore up down and sideways they were inclusive, diverse, supportive, “just interested” and on and on.

      Work isn’t psychotherapy! It doesn’t matter how your brain works if you get the job done! I understand this phrase isn’t literal but it’s often applied in a “close enough” way that it’s irksome to me and I feel it winds up doing more harm than good.

    13. Grenelda Thurber*

      My answer would be that they haven’t provided enough information. How much does the elephant weigh? What part of the city is the elephant in now? What type of facility is it moving to? How long do we have to transport said elephant to its final destination? What is the budget for moving the elephant? Then I’d say that we clearly need the advice of an SME. I’d offer to contact a zoo or a wild animal park to find someone who works with elephants and has experience moving them. We would probably need to engage the services of a veterinarian who would oversee the well-being of the elephant, and contact any governmental agencies that have authority to oversee moving exotic animals, and on and on and on. I hate hate hate stupid questions like these, but this particular one isn’t so hard, though I imagine the questioner wouldn’t be interested in answering all my questions or hearing everything about what I would do. Does anyone know what type of answer is recommended? I always figured they were just trying to play head games, looking for a way to make you sweat.

      1. Allison K*

        I’m an ex-circus professional. My first question is “does the elephant have a handler? Because if it’s Bob, we’re good.”

        1. Reluctant Mezzo*

          My first question would be, ‘how big is the elephant?’ I haz a pickup if it’s a baby.

    14. NotAnotherManager!*

      I agree with all of this. I interview a lot of true entry-level folks who don’t know enough to answer industry-specific questions yet. One of the most enlightening questions that I use is to have people tell me about a time they were asked to do something they’d never done before, how they approached it, and how it turned out. What I’m looking for is how did they approach the problem, could they marshal resources to solve it, and could they self-reflect on their own performance. I have gotten some really great examples over the years – putting on a public access game show on short notice, an RA with broke pipes flooding their dorm, taking over a student organization that was unexpectedly broke, doing a research project, designing and managing a website for a personal project, etc. (One of the best examples I got was from someone whose novel project went horribly awry, which gave them a lot of great lessons-learned and demonstrated excellent self-reflection.)

      They all translate to the on-the-job problem-solving these folks are being called on to do, but it lets them use a situation they’re familiar with without having to deal with a random hypothetical (or the shock of being asked something entirely off topic in an interview). We do a lot of crazy shit on short notice but usually no actual animals are involved.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I would resolve a lot of these with the questions from the old Jaycee Chairman’s Planning Guide. It’s a great planning tool and having read a few where you saw brilliant improvisations given rapidly changing circumstances, you bring a certain attitude towards chaos and despair (Examples: getting the Easter Egg Roll ready for 11 am because the local newspaper printed that as the time even though the mall told them 1 pm or resolving the problem of a locked gate closing off the field for the donkey baseball game because that screwdrivers are your friend).

    15. North American Couch Wizard Society Member*

      In one of the articles Alison linked it said that Google had replaced the off-the-wall brain teasers with exactly that kind of probing question about how they managed problems in their field of expertise, .e.g., “tell me about a time when people on your team had different management needs” or “tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflicting priorites”. I think that kind of question gives so much more information about how someone approaches a real-world problem and (more importantly!) is able to reflect on their own actual experiences and decisions.

  2. nnn*

    If the workplace in #1 wanted to do an experiment, they could ask various existing employees how they’d transport an elephant (either informally in the break room or more scientifically through some kind of anonymized survey), and see if the answers that people give correlate with their actual real-life performance.

    Is it worth the bother of doing the experiment? I have no idea – that depends on many specific variables I can’t see through the internet.

    1. bamcheeks*

      This is basically what Google did— they are very into optimising everything so they tracked all that data for a few years and decided the puzzle questions were junk. You don’t have to do it because Google already did!

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        I do really appreciate this example of someone thinking “We think X results in Y, but does it really?” and realizing they had the data to consult for an answer.

        1. JustaTech*

          Effectiveness verification for the win!
          It’s such an important part of any kind of intervention ( I learned about it in the context of public health) but it’s sadly rarely ever actually done.
          In the context of NGOs and public health it’s because donors don’t want to “see their donations wasted” or learn that the thing that they really like doesn’t actually help.

          In general it’s because projects lose momentum once they’re implemented. If it’s not a formal part of the change control process it’s very common that no one goes back to check and see if the thing they changed actually worked (if it’s not blatantly obvious, like the leaky roof).

    2. Emmy Noether*

      Ah, but if the elephant-question boss hired a bunch of them based on their answer to that question, then the data set is biased.

    3. KitKat*

      I work in operations (but in tech, not dealing with physical machinery or anything like that). I don’t even understand what a good answer to the question IS.

      My answer would be that I would hire a ln animal transport company. It would be very boring, like hiring any other contractor. I assume the boss is looking for something fun and creative (?) but in the real world large animals are moved by professionals in big trailers.

      1. Magda*

        It’s a wise insight that the primary goal of the questions (subconsciously) is to make the interviewER feel smart. They already know the answer – or at least some good answers – and can watch the interviewee struggle/flail around in surprise. That will give them an ego boost. Which, coincidentally, is why most interviewees aren’t going to love surprise brainteaser questions.

        1. Thegreatprevaricator*

          I find this an interesting answer! I am the kind of person in the kind of role that would probably like this kind of question. I tend to assume that my experience is everyone else’s though. I think that’s what you’re doing with this answer – am I right in thinking that you wouldn’t like this kind of question.

          I haven’t done a lot of interviewing but I was more interested in finding out whether the person was right for the role. I already know I’m clever. Plus this specific question there isn’t a ‘right’ answer although there are probably indicators of how people think. Making it relevant to the job is probably more helpful though as others have said

          1. metadata minion*

            “Plus this specific question there isn’t a ‘right’ answer ”

            But there is a right answer! Or at least, I’m very sure there are established best practices in how to move elephants in a way that maximizes the safety of elephant, humans, and equipment. It’s entirely possible that there’s a better way to move elephants than whatever we’re doing now, but if I’m going to invent one, I should at least learn what the normal way is first before trying to be clever. I get the impression that whoever wrote the question is thinking of “elephant” as a kind of stock absurd figure instead of an actual animal that institutions like zoos really do need to move from place to place occasionally.

            1. Rex Libris*

              This. It’s very much a question you could successfully answer with “Google it.” It took me approximately 30 seconds to find step by step directions for the best practices in moving an elephant, and agencies you could contact to help with it.

              1. Jackalope*

                I mentioned this above, but I used to work at a zoo. My response would be very much to contact one of the zookeepers I’m still in touch with to have them get me the info for the company who helped them move *their* elephants. That way I’d have someone I knew was local, and who at least in theory already had a good reputation with someone I trusted.

          2. MigraineMonth*

            There are a bunch of popular interview questions that are specifically brainteasers/riddles that involve burning pieces of rope in order to tell time, dumping water from one bucket into another bucket, or rowing foxes and bags of grain across a river. Each of these have a trick/counter-intuitive step, so all the question tells you is “Does the candidate have that ah-hah! moment if inspiration, or not?”

            It makes the interviewer feel very smart to watch the candidate struggle. It only tells the interviewer if the candidate is good at that specific type of counter-intuitive thinking at this one moment (or if they’ve heard it before and are good at faking it).

      3. metadata minion*

        “My answer would be that I would hire a ln animal transport company. It would be very boring, like hiring any other contractor. I assume the boss is looking for something fun and creative (?) but in the real world large animals are moved by professionals in big trailers.”

        Exactly! If it’s my job to transport elephants, then presumably my answer is “rigorously follow established elephant transportation protocols”. If it’s not my job to transport elephants, me doing so is probably very illegal in several different ways (why do I have an elephant in the first place? Am I kidnapping elephants from the zoo? Why has the person in Bristol not hired normal elephant-moving staff? And in this case, is it important that I transport the elephant *surreptitiously*?).

        1. SarahKay*

          Well “Am I kidnapping elephants from the zoo? … is it important that I transport the elephant *surreptitiously*?” had me cackling out loud.

        2. Kit*

          This reminds me of a similar stupid interview question I’ve seen floating around, where one is told they have been given an elephant and cannot sell it or give it away; what do they do with it?

          My answer, famously boring among my friends, is that possession of an elephant by a private individual unlicensed to own such a creature (which I am not) is illegal according to the ESA and CITES and I would call the relevant authorities to have it confiscated.

          1. I Have RBF*

            See, I would lease it to my local zoo. I would still own it, but they would have to pay for its upkeep.

          2. Blackbeard*

            My answer : I would bring the elephant with me to job interviews, to have him crush people asking dumb interview questions.

        3. The OG Sleepless*

          I mean…I know how to transport a (fairly valuable and high-strung) dairy cow from central Georgia to Louisville, Kentucky, because I’ve done it, but an elephant won’t fit in a cattle trailer. Plus I know just enough about elephants to know I don’t want to do anything stressful to one, and I imagine there are some serious permits involved in taking an exotic species across state lines. So. I know just enough about the problem to know that I am not the person to solve it, so I’m calling someone who is. Which, I guess, is a behavioral answer after all. I know the limits of my expertise and I know when to refer a problem to someone else.

        4. LL*

          haha, I’ve been thinking about this question for a couple of hours and my first two questions would be: Why am I responsible for transporting this elephant? and Where is the elephant?

      4. EmF*

        Right? Transporting large animals is a solved problem. (I could probably answer very well how to transport an elephant over a long distance, because that’s relevant to my interests, but I’d still be completely unqualified for the job OP is talking about.)

      5. DannyG*

        My first thought was “Call the nearest Zoo with large animals and ask for their recommendations”.

        The Humourous reply would be “Put a stamp on it’s butt and ring up the post for pickup”

      6. Rusty Shackelford*

        My answer would be “Luckily, my brother-in-law lives in Bristol and owns an elephant transport company, so I’d just give him a call.” I mean, if you’re going to ask an imaginary question, you’re going to get an imaginary answer.

      7. Gumby*

        Sure. But I’d start with asking about budget for the move, the schedule, whether the destination is set up to accept the elephant, look into legal requirements for the move and the housing of the elephant, etc. Still boring – if I wanted to be creative I’d somehow include lessons in riding elephants or hiring circus performers. But boring in a way that does give you a teensy bit of insight. I’m not saying it’s a *good* interview question as there are much better ways to find out people’s past experiences and competencies. But the person who says “hire a specialist. done.” probably brings different skills to a job than the one who says “do these steps to select the specialists and plan the move” or the one who answers “ask logistics to deal with the the planning and paperwork then set up social media accounts in the elephant’s name to document her heartwarming journey to her forever home.” And the project probably needs all 3 people (plus more).

        I actually find this kind of fascinating but I am also the sort of person who has read multiple articles about how they moved the space shuttle Endeavor to Los Angeles in 2012 and another few when they moved it to a different location recently.

    4. T2*

      Thinking of this literally as I usually do, my answer would have been: “I would use a very big truck.”

      But then, I also read how the local zoo did it, so there is that.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      It’s not worth doing the experiment because others already have done it and determined there is no correlation. I mean, it might be doing doing the experiment if you’re a scientist trying to confirm there’s no correlation. But if you’re just any ol’ employer trying to decide whether the continue the practice or, no need to try to prove it internally useless. Just read up on others who already did.

  3. Unkempt Flatware*

    In case one gets a ridiculous question like this, answer with, “by getting three quotes from local qualified elephant transport companies and selecting the bid with the best value.” Then stare blankly.

    2. MK*

      Right? I realize the interviewer wants to find out how a candidate would handle the matter practically, but, as a lawyer, my mind immediately went to the legalities. How is a private company in the UK in possession of an elephant legally? Don’t you need some kind of permit to own one, let alone transport them? Isn’t there trained staff taking care of the elephant, who are much more qualified to handle this? Frankly, my first impulse would be to make sure I am not being an accessory to a crime.

        1. Ellie*

          We had a similar nonsensical question as part of a team morale building exercise. We were asked to pair off and try to negotiate a contract for the delivery of a quantity of goods. One represented the supplier, and one, the customer. They gave us half an hour for the exercise.

          Being software engineers, who have nothing to do with the negotiation and purchase of goods, we sat down, googled the price of the goods, said, “1 million dollars seems to be the going rate. Shall we say half up front and half on delivery?” and we were done. We had to make small talk for the rest of the time.

          When interviewing though, I just straight up ask what their go-to problem solving approach is. What do you do if I gave you a problem and you had no idea how to solve it. Just straight up ask.

          1. EmF*

            In an (otherwise excellent) class I took, one of the exercises was to pretend we were a retired rich person who wanted to mentor a small business owner and had done some research and picked a small business that was relevant to our interests. The assignment was to negotiate with the current owner (who didn’t want to sell and was happy with the business as it was) to purchase half -ownership of the business so that we could mentor them and expand the business.

            I couldn’t get over why on earth I’d need to own a business if I was independently wealthy and just wanted to mentor someone. Like. There are a million mentorship programs in the world. Join one of them. Presumably there are people for whom this made some kind of sense, but it seemed so unnecessary!

            1. MsM*

              I don’t know, dealing with a retired rich person who desperately wants to play mentor sounds like an excellent roleplaying exercise for a prospective major gifts officer.

            2. Grenelda Thurber*

              Why would anyone try to mentor a person who owns a business, is happy with how things are going, and doesn’t want to sell? And like you said, there are plenty of organizations who have lists of people who WANT to be mentored.

          2. March*

            If someone asked me during an interview how I would solve a problem that I’d never encountered before, I would be absolutely obnoxious with return questions like “is there a time crunch?” “How much trouble is the company in if I screw this up?” “Do I have any budget to work with, and what’s the ballpark number?” “Do I have to do this alone or can I ask coworkers for help?”
            Basically, this question would net ME way more info about THEM than vice versa.

          3. MigraineMonth*

            There was an ethics professor who asked a bunch of us computer science undergrads to give her feedback on the new “Ethics in Computer Science” class she was putting together, and we drove her absolutely crazy by being too results-focused. (In our defense, in a field full of ethical quandaries, she seemed to invent her own.)

            Her: “Older people with dogs live longer and are happier. Is it ethical to give older people who can’t take care of real dogs a robot dog?”

            Us: “Does it work? Do the robot dogs help them live longer and be happier?”

            Her: “That’s irrelevant to the ethics.”

            Us: “…It is?”

            2. Madame Desmortes*

              Speaking as someone who is not a trained ethicist but sometimes teaches data and tech ethics…

              … this instructor is Not Great.

              1. MigraineMonth*

                As I said, there are a lot of important ethical questions in the field! At the time, I was trying to decide whether working on a research project funded by the DOD but which didn’t have direct military applications would violate my antiwar beliefs, and I could have used a framework.

                She wanted to argue that not only white-hat hacking but *working in computer security* was unethical, because it just led to a wasteful arms race between computer security professionals and hackers.

                Since she seemed pretty resistant to all of our feedback, I’m betting it was a fascinating class filled with stunned silence while all the students looked at each other to check if she’d actually just said the thing she’d just said.

            3. metadata minion*

              I’m not even sure what the ethical concern is supposed to be here. Do the older people want robot dogs? Then yes, robot dogs sound like a great idea. If they already have a dog that they truly can’t care for, and there aren’t any other support options, then the dog needs to be removed from their care regardless of the availability of robot dogs.

              1. metadata minion*

                Oh, wait, are we giving them *secretly* robot dogs that perfectly mimic actual dogs? That’s maybe a more interesting question, but I’m not sure why the secrecy is necessary.

                1. MigraineMonth*

                  She thought that having a robot mimic a dog’s behaviors would trick older people into loving the robots and believing the robots loved them, which was an ethical violation.

                  She explained this to a group of CS students who had grown up with nanopets and played video games where you could romantically pursue and have sex with elven and alien characters. She didn’t seem to believe that you could love and be attached to inanimate objects (e.g. stuffed animals, favorite cell phone) without any deceit or ethical violation.

        2. Throwaway Account*

          Well, it is not a business question and I’m not a lawyer and I’d be asking the same questions.

        3. Antilles*

          @elena
          In this case, immediately worrying about the legal issues involved with transporting an endangered species is a 100% correct response.

          1. Steve for Work Purposes*

            Yeah and the animal welfare/ethics/biosecurity rules (as someone who spent this whole week filling out animal ethics paperwork, including a section re safe and humane transport of large domestic animals). I’d be looking up the legal guidelines re how to safely transport an elephant and what are the regulations for doing so.

        4. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

          You’re going to have much bigger business problems if you are illegally trafficking animals.

        7. A reader among many*

          It is a useful piece of info, though, if “does not wish to be involved in crimes on behalf of their employer” equates to “is not a team player.” ;)

    3. Free Meerkats*

      “That’s not enough information to formulate a coherent answer. African, Indian, or Pygmy elephant? Adult, sub-adult, or infant? Sex of the elephant? Is it in musth or estrus? Pregnant? Is the elephant trained in any way?” Etc, Etc, Etc.

      1. Suze*

        Got to say the answers here gives me a fair idea about how the commentariat’s brains work. Maybe it’s a good question after all. I’d hire you, Meerkats.

        1. bamcheeks*

          Right? I started off a sceptic but I’m coming around to the idea of using this question in my next interviews. :-P

          1. Thegreatprevaricator*

            I enjoyed the question and I think my responses are fairly on brand for my brain to be fair. My first question would be *why* do you want to transport an elephant. The second would be is it advisable to transport an elephant, seeking appropriate advice. Third would be what’s your budget and timescale. Then if appropriate I’d outsource the job and get quotes :D . This kind of thing used to be part of my job as a theatre producer and I loved it. No elephants were required but I did have to once source a lamb for a photo shoot..

          2. Seconds*

            I’m wondering how much of the value comes from the brainstorming effect of having all of us think about it together without feeling pressured.

            I suspect that a lot of good potential employees would freeze up at this question.

            Also that you could lessen the same things from asking job-related questions instead.

            1. Thegreatprevaricator*

              Yeah I agree on this. Not a useful question. It did make me reflect on some of my strengths, and how I was/ am qualified for some of the work I do. This is the kind of thing I used to do a lot (not with elephants but random problem solving) so wouldn’t be a stretch for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I’m suitable for any job where the question is used. A nice little boost though on a day where some of the concurrent weaknesses are plaguing me!

      2. Worldwalker*

        And what is the company’s priority? Speed? Least expense? Best for the elephant? Is this a one-off, or do they plan to transport elephants repeatedly? The same elephant or different ones?

        Is it even a real elephant at all, or a cute plush one? Did the CEO’s little child leave it behind, hence the importance of the transport?

        Yeah. We don’t have nearly enough information to characterize the problem, let alone solve it.

        I probably wouldn’t get the job.

        1. MassMatt*

          These follow-up questions are IMO less ridiculous than the initial question.

          With no context given, the goal of “seeing how the applicant’s mind works” may get you responses far afield from what you expect. How are you going to evaluate these answers to make a useful hire?

        2. Bike Walk Barb*

          I love the possibility you raise that it isn’t even a real live breathing great big animal. “Is this a real elephant or a funny elephant GIF I can send via email?”

      3. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

        “What is the context in which the elephant in question needs to be moved?”

      4. Phony Genius*

        How many people here read this comment and thought of an unladen swallow (African or European)?

        1. Insert Clever Name Here*

          I’m honestly more interested on where the swallow would grip the elephant (by its tusk?).

      5. Helen Waite*

        I would also want to know if the elephant is white and if the receiver in Bristol is aware that there’s a white elephant about to be transferred to that division.

      6. Not A Raccoon Keeper*

        And most importantly, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen elephant?

        Yes, I am bad at interviews, thanks for asking.

    4. Maz*

      Exactly. Contact a couple of zoos and/or wildlife rescue organisations and ask them for recommendations for companies who specialise in transporting large animals, contract with one of those companies and then leave it to the experts.

      1. UKDancer*

        Yes I think my answer would be the same. Take advice from experts and then get quotes from professionals and contract the work to someone who does it professionally.

        I don’t think it’s a particularly good question.

    5. porridge fan*

      “I would fold it in thirds, put it in a standard business envelope addressed to the recipient, attach a first-class stamp and put it in the office’s outgoing post tray”. *enigmatic smile*

      1. Elitist Semicolon*

        I’d be tempted to say “in my bike pannier” while keeping a perfectly straight face.

        1. Gumby*

          Ha!

          When I was a kid I though the book 101 Elephant Jokes was the funniest thing ever. I was slightly disappointed when I found it when helping my parents pack for a move and discovered it did not hold up as well on re-read.

    6. Lexi Vipond*

      I would contact the zoo and ask them for advice – but if I wasn’t already working for Edinburgh (or Bristol) Zoo, why would I have an elephant?

      1. Not Australian*

        Alas, Bristol Zoo – like the famous parrot – has ceased to exist: pushing up daisies, it has joined the choir eternal.

        Probably best not to ask why I know this…

        2. Lexi Vipond*

          Ahh, I thought it had just turned into the same thing with a different name, or a different thing with the same name, or similar. In that case the hypothetical elephant will have to go to Chester!

          1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

            Never expected to see an old workplace of mine (had a holiday job in the restaurant there) mentioned on AAM!

      2. EdinBugger*

        Edinburgh Zoo has not had an elephant in a very long time! The site is not capable of providing a suitable enclosure for them.

        We do now have giraffes though :)

          1. EmF*

            The best way to transport a rhino, afaik, is hanging upside-down from a helicopter. Elephants, not so much. (In the past, if I remember right, elephants have been transported across the island of Great Britain by… walking. I suspect these days that might not be practical.)

            1. MG*

              That was actually where my quirky mind went – I’d ride it. I mean, I wouldn’t really, but I think it’s an answer worthy of the question.

        2. SarahKay*

          And lions, which I can hear from my flat (apartment), half a mile away. When I was buying the flat I was absurdly thrilled to be told by the sellers that one can hear the lions from there. (I’m in my fifties, and I remain thrilled.)

        3. fhqwhgads*

          See it’s fascinating to me how many folks are discussing the zoos (or lackthereof) in the locations because my first thought was “why is the elephant in Edinburgh and why does it need to go to Bristol” and not assuming the premise included it being at a zoo.

          That said my first follow up would’ve likely been “do you mean a living breathing endangered species elephant? or some sort of statue or model, or is this transport from a veterinary hospital of some kind, an elephant embryo for IVF? Does your business often involve elephants?” etc

      3. Guacamole Bob*

        This is where my mind went, too – we have elephants at our closest zoo, so surely they could advise!

        1. ThatOtherClare*

          Same! The most appropriate answer to any question of ‘How would you do x thing that you have no experience in?’ is ‘Well, first, I’d talk to an expert or two, then I’d follow their recommendations on either how to do the thing or who else I need to consult.’

      4. Nightengale*

        right? How did the elephant get here? Either it was born here, in which case I clearly have a major large animal breeding program with trained personnel and transportation protocols built in, or it got here somehow and can leave via the same method.

        1. A reader among many*

          You would think that the large hole in the wall might be related to the means by which the elephant made its appearance, but Extremely Upper Management seem convinced that there’s another entrance, as yet undiscovered, and it is through that entrance that they wish the elephant to be conveyed out.

          Extra wrinkles for the interview question!

    8. Richard Hershberger*

      Very much this. Indeed, if this problem were to come up in the real world. this clearly is the only correct answer. Yet it likely is not what the interviewer is looking for. Or maybe it is, the interviewer looking for a candidate who cuts through the BS. Yet it is still a stupid question, as it comes down to guessing what the interviewer is looking for. It is like a badly constructed grammar test, which often are really tests about ideology.

    10. Thomas*

      Agreed. That’s the way a business *should* handle occasional tasks that aren’t part of their core business.

    11. Ganymede II*

      My answer would take us to a different place: get the rest of the herd to Bristol, and the one lonely elephant will follow.

      It turns out there is such a thing as a stupid question, and it deserves a stupid answer.

    12. Liane*

      Just from reading the post title/teaser, I went to, “Step 1: realize This Position Name has nothing whatsoever to do with elephant transport. Step 2: refer querant to one or both zoos where they will get the most up-to-date advice …. Unspoken Penultimate Step: congratulate self on using “querant” properly in real life. Unspoken Last Step: decide if a job with a ridiculous grandboss is really a good fit for me.

    14. Glass*

      I once answered “how many piano tuners are there in Chicago” with “check the Yellow Pages.” My interviewers were not amused. I only recommend that tack if you don’t want the job.

      1. On Fire*

        FR? What did they expect you to say? “As of the last census there were 1,437, but I saw in the obits that one died last week, and three more have retired.”

      2. Guacamole Bob*

        I think you’re meant to say something like, “there are both private pianos in some homes, and commercial music schools, performing venues, churches, etc. If there are X million people in Chicago, maybe there are two hundred thousand pianos in the city. I don’t know exactly how many pianos a typical piano tuner would have as a client, but someone can tune a few a day and people tune them every few months to every couple of years, so maybe one tuner per 500 pianos, so that would mean there are 400 tuners. Huh, that’s more than I would have thought.”

        1. Guacamole Bob*

          I have no idea how realistic any of these numbers are, but I am guessing it’s this kind of “how would I break down this problem and figure it out” thinking that the question is intended to elicit.

          1. metadata minion*

            But even there, why not make up a more work-relevant question? This one is once again asking you to work out from first principles something to which *there is a known answer*. I would guess piano tuners probably have a professional association of some kind — I should look it up and ask them. Or if they don’t, a major piano store or music school probably knows.

            1. Guacamole Bob*

              Absolutely agreed that you should just pick a more work-relevant question! I think these kinds of questions are most common and potentially relevant for some kinds of jobs where firms hire smart people and train them for specifics – certain kinds of management consulting and such.

              1. metadata minion*

                It still needs to be a question that actually *requires* you to do that kind of thinking. For the elephant, or the “how many people are born every day” or the piano tuners, these are all things where there is either documentation or an expert who can tell you how to do the thing. It’s a waste of time for me to try to figure out the question on my own.

              2. metadata minion*

                The piano tuner one also assumes a certain level of shared cultural knowledge about pianos, which someone may or may not have.

            2. Texan In Exile*

              I had a boss who used to try the Socratic method with me when I asked him a question (to which there was a known answer – it was just that I did not know it).

              I finally got exasperated and told him that I knew how to solve problems and that if I was asking him, it was because I had exhausted every other option and all I wanted was the damn answer.

          2. fhqwhgads*

            But if the goal is “see how someone thinks” then that’s only a good answer if the hoped-for way someone thinks is “breaks it down to do approximate math”. If the hoped-for way someone thinks is is “see if someone is competent at looking things up”, yellow pages, google, census, all good answers.
            Anyone asking these types of questions with a “right” answer in mind is using the question wrong.

        2. 2e asteroid*

          This is exactly what they’re looking for. Weirdly, what the question probably actually tests is if you’ve taken a physics class that talks about Fermi estimation, because this is a standard example.

      3. Nightengale*

        I heard the story, which may or may not be true, of someone who was supposed to use a barometer to find out how tall an apartment building was. Some of the solutions included very complex pressure equations or walking down the stairs measuring the wall off in barometer lengths.

        But the best solution was to knock on the door of the building manager and say “Here is a brand new barometer. I will give it to you if you tell me how tall this building is.”

        1. Kit*

          I got this question in a physics class!

          My complete list of answers:
          * Use the barometer to determine the pressure at ground level and the top of the building, and calculate the height accordingly
          * Measure the height of the barometer and its shadow cast, then measure the shadow cast by the building and calculate its height accordingly
          * Drop the barometer from the top of the building, time its fall, and calculate the building height accordingly
          * Measure the building height based on barometer lengths in the stairwell(s), as noted
          * … and, of course, find the building superintendent and say “If you tell me how tall this building is, I’ll give you this very nice barometer.”

    16. Na$ty Larry*

      “How would I transport an elephant? I wouldn’t. I’d report you to authorities for trafficking exotic animals. Enjoy your fine!”

    17. pally*

      I would guess that via a semi a la Smokey and the Bandit II would have me walked right out of the building.

      No doubt that’s where they got this idea.

    18. Pay no attention...*

      Yes! I’d add, does the company have an account with a preferred transport vendor already. It may be as simple as call up FedEx and fill out the label.

    19. Hats Are Great*

      I mean he thinks he’s a brain teaser but there are actual right and wrong answers here, that any parent with animal-crazy kids would know at a moment’s notice. It’s generally done by truck, and going so far as Edinburgh to Bristol, you’d want a police escort to clear the road to make the journey as short, simple, and calm as possible for the elephant. There would be medical checks, human companions, and training to walk in and out of the truck for months in advance.

      But the larger answer would be, Edinburgh and Bristol no longer keep elephants because they can’t provide large enough enclosures and the climates are too unsuitable. Why are you even asking this question if you know or care so little about elephant well being that you think having an elephant in EITHER location is reasonable, or that elephants should be transported on a whim.

      1. JustaTech*

        Exactly. There are right and wrong answers because this isn’t a completely hypothetical question.
        For example, in the US, how would you transport several elephants from Seattle (north west corner, so top left) to Oklahoma (middle)? Well, it turns out that it depends on the season, because you have to either go over the Rocky Mountains (not an option for elephants in the winter) or go all the way south and over a smaller mountain range.

        And no matter how you go you have to pre-arrange with every single zoo or sanctuary along the way in case of weather delays so you have a safe place for the elephants to stay if you have to stop for snow.

        None of which is an “interesting brain teaser” and all of which depends on how much you happen to have read in the paper about when the elephants moved away.

        1. I Have RBF*

          And the third option is specialized air transport in a wide body freight plane.

          But google is the place to start for options.

  4. Autumnal*

    Q1, the image that popped into my head was me, slowly cocking an eyebrow, snort laughing, and replying, “One piece at a time.” At which point I’d stand up and giggle/snort my way to the exit door. Yeesh. Ask ridiculous questions, get ridiculous answers.

    5. Stanley steamers*

      So can we maybe stick to real/feasible answers for LW1? Instead of the “I like to pretend I’m the main character in a middling CBS prime time sitcom circa 2002” fantasy world responses that everyone is dishing out?

      1. Allonge*

        Just about everyone giving good answers (that show thinking and problem-solving around an admittedly silly and theoretical issue) adds that ‘this is not what boss is looking for’.

  5. Raida*

    For the technical position with field work, *before* the offer I’d say “I’d like to know more about what the field work entails, could I catch up with someone else who’s doing/has done the role to get a better idea of it overall?”

    And then, if it’s gonna involve something that really cannot be done while using a cane (I dunno, farmers walking desktop towers uphill?) you’ll know and you can opt out of the role – still without disclosing the medical information.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      I genuinely JUST did this last week! And the results were great, they explained in detail what the role HAS looked like and where that can be flexible depending on the skills/preferences of the new employee (and those flexibilities DID make it so I felt comfortable applying)

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Yeah, I think it’s really important to get all the info on what the day-to-day looks like for the job. I think that’s even one of AAM’s recommended interview questions! And I agree, you don’t have to disclose your disability, because if you need to opt out based on that answer, you can simply say that you really would prefer a job that required little to no field work but would love to apply for one of their office positions in the future. And who knows? If you are an outstanding prospect for them (which it sure sounds like you are), they might be willing to revamp the position to accommodate you.

      Note: I wouldn’t suggest you tell them right when they answer your question that you are withdrawing from consideration, but give yourself a day or two to think it over and then have a discussion with them before you officially withdraw. Again, they might surprise you by finding a way for the job to work for you. Best of luck!

  7. Free Meerkats*

    For #3, try the direct approach once. When that doesn’t work, grey rock them into submission.

  8. Marshmallow*

    This isn’t helpful, but I once got asked in an interview “where does crude oil come from?” The job had nothing to do with crude oil (although was a lab job so sciency)… my stupid literal brain had no idea what he wanted. My answer was “the ground?” Followed by a blank stare. He laughed and said “ok, yes, technically correct”… and then he did expand the question to get to his point. Which I don’t remember. It was one question during a 4 hour onsite interview process. My literal answer must not have been a red flag. They hired me and I’ve been with that company for 17 years. I’ve never worked with the guy that asked that question though. The rest of the questions were your standard behavior based questions.

    I’ve also worked with an interviewer that likes to ask what you would do if your car broke down on the side of the road. It tells me nothing about the candidates but I do find it amusing to watch people blank stare (which I don’t count against them cuz it’s a silly question)… but like really? You’ve never had your car break down?!?! How?!?! I’ve been stranded on the side of the road so many times! I can’t fathom not having an example story for that question! I would ace it for sure! I am very experienced at “car died on side of road”!

    1. UKDancer*

      Err I’m not sure what he expects for the breakdown question but my answer would be instintively to call the AA and wait in a safe place for them to come. That’s what I pay them for.

        1. Yours Sincerely, Raymond Holt*

          Or who doesn’t drive at all, potentially for reasons like a disability which they may not wish to disclose…

        2. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

          I’d answer about the part that comes before calling the roadside assistance service though: Situational awareness, is the car stopped in a safe position? If not, can it be moved safely or is it better to get out of the car and move to a safer place? Do you have any passengers? Is there a situation at home etc (such as a pet left alone) that you need to start making a contingency plan for? And then the information gathering part: what happened just prior to the breakdown? Did you notice anything unusual e.g. the vehicle made a strange noise or smell, it lost power, a warning light came on, etc. Had you done anything that could have caused the failure, e.g. went over a large bump and now you have a flat tyre. You need this information to be able to communicate the failure to the breakdown service or whoever ends up fixing it. Lastly evaluate what’s the best thing to do now, which is situational. If you googled the warning light and it is a “get the car in to a mechanic as soon as you can” rather than “do not drive”, you would probably continue on to the destination or home (or other safe place) rather than call the assistance service.

          Basically it is a “how do you deal with problematic situation” question, to which the answer (as with almost all problems) is resolve or reduce any immediate risks, gather information, make an informed decision what to do next.

          1. Seconds*

            I would do all those things in an emergency —but if asked the question in an interview, I wouldn’t think to say that sort of thing. I’d probably say, “I’d call a tow truck.”

            Which is why it’s not a good question. It doesn’t test what people would actually do. It tests how people react to being asked questions that they didn’t expect about things that they might not have given explicit thought to. Unless that’s in the job description, I don’t see how it would be helpful.

            I’m good at answering questions about things I’ve thought about. In fact, explaining things thoroughly is one of my strengths. But that would not show up in a question dealing with something completely outside my field that I hadn’t given much thought to.

        3. Worldwalker*

          It’s more a matter of who can afford not to get one. Even when I was dirt-poor I kept up my AAA membership because amortized over a year it’s not much; a single tow can easily cost several times as much. And if you’re poor, you’re more likely to have a car that breaks down at random times and needs service.

          Which might be something that the interviewer wants to know—how you think about risk management and planning—but it’s a terrible way to ask about it.

          1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

            Also a lot of cell phone plans (if you have a contract) and also car insurance companies offer roadside assistance add-ons for a couple bucks a month. I think it was $3/month on my cell bill when I got it through Verizon, maybe? And currently it’s $2.47 a month on my car insurance premium payments.

      2. Marshmallow*

        That’s a great answer!

        She’s usually looking for troubleshooting processes and like willingness to ask for help vs doing something dangerous. Really I don’t think we’ve ever made a decision based on that question.

        I’ve not done it the same ever. Once I called a friend to come get me. Once, the car still drove but not fast enough for highway and I was over an hour from home with no cell phone access so I got off on next exit and trolled the town for unthreatening looking people to ask where the nearest car fixy place was. I found an old guy and creepily pulled up next to him to ask my question (luckily I am a small unthreatening woman). He directed me to one and I went there. When I was a kid my mom got stranded and tried to climb the embankment of the highway with her two small children to get to a house with a phone. Luckily a cop saw her and helped. I learned my survival skills from her…

        I have several more stranded car stories but those are fun ones.

        1. Arrietty*

          My car has never broken down. I once had to call roadside assistance when the front windscreen was hit by a flying object and shattered, and another time when the sidewall of my tyre burst I had to call a friend for help. But engine problems etc aren’t something I’ve dealt with. I don’t think it affects my ability to do my job.

          1. SimonTheGreyWarden*

            My car broke down once at a gas station in southern Iowa, about an hour from where my best friend’s family lived. I called my dad, who calmed me down, and then I called her dad, who had AAA, and he called them and told them I was his daughter and that I needed a tow.

            So my actual answer might be “call whoever can get me a tow” but I have my own roadside assist through my auto insurance now so I would just schedule a tow on my app.

        2. Leaving academia*

          I’d have to really focus to keep it short and on topic telling a story about the time AAA drove right past without stopping and cancelled the call, in the rain, on the side of the interstate in downtown Atlanta. Obviously I would leave out the large amount of tears…

          2. Chirpy*

            Oof. I once had to wait 4 days for a tow during a storm (I managed to get the car home so I was safe, but that meant I was not their priority) because they kept leaving me until the end of the day, then canceling last minute because it was cold and their shift was almost over. When they finally came, in the time it took me to hang up the phone and get outside…my neighbor had already stopped the guy to get a jump – he’d just called! And then the tow guy helped him first, although he did at least tell him that I’d been waiting FOUR DAYS

      3. Marshmallow*

        Yes, it’s a dumb question. She’s usually going for like troubleshooting skills and thought processes when something goes wrong but there are so many better ways to ask that. It’s always the last question and we never really use it to actually decide anything.

        I wouldn’t even have a consistent answer for it! Once I just called a friend to come get my passengers and then I called a tow truck and they took me to the dealership.

        Once I was stranded where the car wouldn’t drive fast enough for high way and I was over an hour from home in rural Iowa with no cell phone. I got off on first exit, and trolled the town for a non-threatening stranger to approach for directions to a car fixy place. I found an old guy and pulled up next to him to ask my question. He directed me to a dealership nearby and I went there.

        Once when I was like 4 or so my mom got stranded in the interstate and tried to climb the big hill with her two small kids to a farm house hoping they’d have a phone. Luckily a cop saw and stopped to help, but I learned my survival skills from her…

      4. Ellis Bell*

        This is my answer too, which would also be delivered with a blank stare. Or at times when I’ve been too broke for roadside assistance “I called a friend” or “I called AA and paid way too much for instant membership because my savings gamble didn’t pay off”. I don’t think it’s intended to be, but it is very much linked to what people can afford to do; not to mention the fact that not everyone drives? I’m sure it feels like a satisfying conversation for the interviewer, but I would leave that interview unimpressed.

      5. bamcheeks*

        I’ve had one, less than a week after I’d bought a secondhand car, when the bottom cover fell off under the car and scraped off the floor. I crawled along the shoulder and came off the motorway at the , looking for somewhere safe to stop, and the van immediately behind me pulled in behind me and a very kind man got out and said, “hi love, I saw what happened to your car, I’m actually a garage mechanic and I can tie it up safely enough for you to get home and get it fixed properly.”

        So I’d probably have to go full Blanche DuBois: “I have always relied on the kindness of strangers”.

    2. Elf*

      I suspect the blank states are because the question is so unexpected and out of context that it’s jarring!

      Plus, as with the elephant question there are so many factors that could change how I would answer the question.

      1. Nobby Nobbs*

        Yeah. What kind of breakdown? What kind of road? How far am I from home and family, exactly? Personal or company vehicle? (Yes, my DM does love me very much, why do you ask?)

    3. Yours Sincerely, Raymond Holt*

      I don’t drive and would be completely thrown by a question about a car breaking down because I’d be trying to work out why they were asking, whether driving is, in fact, part of the role and it was never stated, whether there’s a right or wrong answer, is it OK to just say I’d phone AA, that seems like the “wrong” answer but I have no idea how to fix a car so?

      None of this has anything to do with my job. If you asked me what I’d do if eg a top stakeholder told me they were unhappy with a critical project two days before completion, or a problem that might occur in the role, I’d be fine.

      1. amoeba*

        I’d be like “hmmm, OK, so I guess if my bike broke down I’d just push it to the nearest bus stop and take it on the bus?”

    4. KateM*

      I’m guessing the country you live in does not require you driving around in a safe vehicle. No yearly checks on roadworthiness or anything?

      1. Marshmallow*

        Uhh.. no there’s not yearly check requirements. I’ve just had bad luck with cars. My one stranded me 7 times in the 6 years I had it and it was new when I bought it. Basically a lemon.

        1. UKDancer*

          I didnt know that. I mean in GB after 3 years there’s a mandatory annual basic roadworthiness test which checks the car will run and is safe (I think slightly different in NI). When I buy second hand cars I go to the gov.uk website and can check its history and how many times it has failed the test. I didn’t realise that wasn’t a common thing.

          That’s probably why I’ve never had a breakdown.

          1. UKDancer*

            Well that and the fact I get it serviced every year.

            Raymond Holt is right, thinking about it. What this question essentially does is find out if people can afford to get a reliable car and keep it serviced or not. So it’s giving a clue whether people have money.

          2. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

            Although you can still have something happen like driving over an empty can of coke that the car in front tossed out and have it flatten, zoom up and cut some important cables.

            (Always know how to bring your car to a safe stop in the event of losing power/brakes/clutch)

      2. Ellis Bell*

        Oh I’ve been stranded in cars that had passed their annual MOT. The cars are tested for safety, not reliability.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          But reliability IS safety. A car breaking down on the road is dangerous. (Driver’s ed here was very insistent that if you have to stop on the side of the highway, you get out of the car and AWAY as fast as possible.)

              1. KateM*

                I think that’s another thing that they don’t have in USA – requirement to be taught to drive by a professional.

                2. Lexi Vipond*

                  I don’t think there’s any requirement to be taught to drive by a professional in the UK – you can get all your instruction from your mum or brother or friend if you want, it’s just probably more efficient to get it from someone who does it regularly.

                3. bamcheeks*

                  Yeah, I don’t think we do either, unless that’s significantly changed since I did mine 25+ years ago!

                  There’s certainly no requirement for formal teaching to go through the theory test– most people just use an app and then take the test.

                4. Watry*

                  This is another one of those things that varies by state. Mine doesn’t have an actual requirement, but if you don’t do it you have to wait until you’re 18 to get your license. And of course it lowers your insurance rates, especially as a new teen driver, which is why my parents sent me to a course even though the requirement didn’t exist at the time.

                5. amoeba*

                  This is all so weird as a German – here, you do indeed have to have a certain number of driving lessons to be allowed to take the test.

                6. Pescadero*

                  Correct.

                  As long as you are a legal adult – you can just take a driving and written test and get a license, with no instruction at all, in every state in the USA.

                7. Helewise*

                  It varies by state. In my state, you need to take the training to get your license if you’re under 18. Once you’re 18, you just need to take the (ridiculously easy) test.

                  Interestingly, when we lived overseas some of our friends from European countries in particular were able to get a national driver’s license automatically just by applying, but we (Americans) had to take the notoriously easy-to-fail driving test because our standards are so inconsistent from state to state.

              1. UKDancer*

                Yes in the UK it’s usually called “driving lessons. ” I’ve only heard it called Drivers Ed” in the US.

                Driving lessons are something people often have with an instructor although sometimes friends and family try teaching as well.

                1. Emmy Noether*

                  In Germany there are theory lessons (in a classroom) AND driving lessons with a certified instructor in a special car that also has the pedals on the passenger side. And both a theoretical and practical examination.
                  The requirements on the number, timing, and type of lessons (highway/inner city/night) are about as strict as clichés about Germany would lead you to believe.

          3. Mongrel*

            From the Government website (link to follow);
            ” The test does not cover the condition of the engine, clutch or gearbox.”

            They’re testing that the car is safe to be on the road NOW and can pass certain standards now.

            3. Allonge*

              How is the condition of the engine not part of that? Like, what are they testing then, that it has the required number of wheels?

              2. Emmy Noether*

                This made me genuinely snort-laugh. Possibly that the brakes… brake and that nothing is literally falling off?

              4. Randomize Me*

                Brakes functional, turn signals work, sometimes an emissions test (depending on the state), wiper blades not too corroded, how is the suspension, (I think my state looks at the fanbelts) … As long as the engine functions enough for the road test to be completed they don’t care about its condition.

              5. Thomas*

                Tyres, brakes, suspension, lights, seatbelts, bodywork I think (broken bits could endanger pedestrians), number plates, I’m sure there’s more. But yeah, the MOT doesn’t check the engine or drivetrain except for the emissions. I guess the logic is you can pull over and stop without a running engine?

                IIRC my MOT fails have been brake pads, brake discs, suspension, and the wrong colour light for one of the indicators. (All the same car in various years.)

          4. Nina*

            Okay, but in New Zealand they don’t check your car for reliability either (also, how the hell would they? ‘do your seatbelts work’ okay good, that’s easy, ‘is there rust’ also easy, but giving an over/under on whether the car is going to crap out suddenly is hard)

          5. AMH*

            Sure, but something can go wrong even on a well maintained car — mechanical parts like belts can fail suddenly, electronics can go on the blink. Stuff happens.

          6. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

            Safety nerd here, reliability and safety are related, but are not the same. Reliable systems can be unsafe and unsafe systems can be reliable.

            As my favorite YouTuber Breadstick Ricky & the Boss (slightly NSFW language/topics, it’s a lot of construction site stuff) would point out, you can’t just have a safe, reliable, and working system. You have to pick one, at best two. :)

        1. Lady Lessa*

          Yep, like running over some hard to see junk and having a flat tire.

          Or, like happened to me, a deer ran into me while I was going about 75 mph (turnpike).
          In that case, I drove to the nearest rest station, evaluated the damage, called work and then found my way to an excellent body shop.

      4. Insert Clever Name Here*

        My husband’s car broke down on the side of the road a week after it passed its annual safety inspection which, as it turns out, aren’t able to predict whether your alternator will go bad in the next year ;)

        Much like how these questions can’t predict if you’ll be a good employee, incidentally.

      5. Leaving academia*

        Only two states I’ve lived in require annual inspections, and that doesn’t prevent cars from breaking down. Granted, I’d probably answer about flat tires (which can be caused by debris), but my sister had part of a piston break off while driving a relatively new car. My ex had a semitruck tire blow in front of him and part of the debris knocked the front bumper—we dealt with that for years, but it easily could have hit some more critical parts.

      6. Antilles*

        Everywhere I’ve lived in the US, this is absolutely not a thing. If you live in an urban/suburban area, you might have an annual emissions check, but that’s it. As long as your car doesn’t have a Check Engine Light on when you go to get your annual tag renewal, you can drive the most beat-up old vehicle held together mostly by duct tape and string and the state doesn’t care.

    5. Emmy Noether*

      I’ve never had a car break down on the road. Unless you count a flat tire, which doesn’t usually strand one in a modern car either (they’re usually still safe to drive to the next repair place when the warning light comes on).

      My parent’s car broke down once, in over 30 years of owning cars. Oh, and my dad once ran out of gas on a highway, which is NOT an example one should give. I don’t think I know of anyone else who got literally stranded – it’s very unusual in my world. Cars usually just make a weird noise, or blink warning lights at you and have to be taken in.

      To be fair, a lot of people I know use mainly public transportation and bikes to get around. Stories of train delays and on-the-fly bike repairs, that I’ve got a LOT. And the solutions are usually more creative and/or entertaining than “call/get assistance”, which is kind of the only (and obvious) solution for a car. It’s not like I’m going to push it anywhere myself or repair it myself or abandon it.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, I’ve never had a car break down and I’ve never been a passenger in a car that broke down, either. My parents have never had any breakdowns, either, in more than 50 years of driving, in spite of the fact that the build quality of their first cars wasn’t particularly good.

      2. CV*

        Same (no breakdowns due to regular maintenance) which was a shock to me — before owning a car l, I lived in a city and used public transport, but for trips, I got rides from friends, most of whom apparently didn’t do regular maintenance, and there was always a chance of a breakdown.
        Not having my own car break down was something of a surprise.

        1. Allonge*

          This – to be honest, as opposed to the elephant situation, the car question is something I would expect a lot of people to have some kind of idea about, even if they don’t have a car. I don’t remember the specifics but we for sure had classes in primary school about road safety and we covered the kid-relevant basics.

          Which does not make it a better interview question (except for drivers I suppose)!

          1. Nightengale*

            Yes but it can be then disproportionally a problem for people who don’t have or know things about cars in discriminatory ways, versus the elephant where most people are assumed to have almost no baseline knowledge.

            My high school physics class used a ton of examples about cars and how things felt driving or riding in a car. I was the only one in my class who at the time didn’t drive (I later learned to drive and then quit) and also didn’t have any sense of how things like acceleration “felt” that we were all assumed to have. We were also assumed to have a baseline knowledge of baseball that everyone else in the class had but I did not. My first night’s homework was estimating how many Big Macs would fill Fenway park. I was great at math! I had to get my father to tell me both what Fenway park looked like and how large a Big Mac was . . . I would have done much better that year if we had been taught things from scratch rather than assuming we all had the same knowledge. I still joke the only week I understood physics all year was the week we talked about sound waves because I played the violin.

    6. Agent Diane*

      My answer would be “I don’t have a car, so I’d be on the train or bus swooshing past”.

      1. Nina*

        And that’s possibly the real point of the question, in jurisdictions where it’s illegal to ask outright ‘do you have a car’.

        2. Best Coke Ever*

          Is it really illegal in some places to ask if you have a car? What if driving is a required part of the job?

          1. ecnaseener*

            This is something I asked about a few open threads ago – it’s quite common to hear people talk as if it’s illegal to ask the question and interviewers will try to go at it sideways. But I can’t find any actual rule about it and if it’s a myth I can’t figure out where it comes from.

            1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

              There aren’t really questions that are illegal to ask. There are questions where it’s illegal to use the answers in consideration, and a lot of organizations will have a policy not to ask those types of questions to avoid putting the answers into play where someone not getting the job could lead to accusations of illegally using them in consideration, but people have turned “this is a bad idea so maybe don’t do it” into “this is illegal and you can’t do it.” It’s not illegal, it’s just dumb. :P

              2. ecnaseener*

                I know all that, what I can’t figure out is why people apply it to car ownership. I haven’t been able to find any (US) jurisdictions where it would be unlawful to consider car ownership in a hiring decision.

                1. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

                  oh gotcha — I expect they’re somehow linking car ownership to economic status? “If this person doesn’t have a car, they must be (whispers) A POOR.” (Which is of course really dumb, but people do a lot of dumb things.)

          1. Expelliarmus*

            I’m guessing it’s because if someone can’t drive for, say, disability reasons, that could be revealed sooner in the interviewing process than what is ideal for consideration.

    7. RLC*

      A question about cars breaking down would immediately give me concern about the sort of company vehicles I might have to use! Decades ago I worked for a very frugal government agency, in a large western US state, with an old and worn out fleet. Breakdowns were inevitable and frequent; I once presented management with a chart showing the breakdown frequency for my assigned vehicle (70% of all trips had some sort of incident). Some of us carried so many tools and supplies that we resembled competitors in the Dakar Rally.

    8. Nodramalama*

      What other answer is there but call whatever road aside assist exists? Is roadside assist only an Australian thing and I am just learning this now

      1. Emmy Noether*

        In old movies people would probably repair the car themselves! Which is not really an option anymore, as most modern cars actively try to keep you from accessing anything without professional-level tools.

        1. Magda*

          I will say the last time I ever tried to change a tire, the professionally-tightened lugnuts were way beyond what my tire iron could handle, even using the “stand on the end” trick, and then I ended up needing an inflation kit for the donut anyway.

          1. Emmy Noether*

            Mmh, I thought lugnuts aren’t supposed to be overtightened (and that professionals use a tool with that tighten to an exact value for this reason). I was taught that if you can’t open it by hand it’ overtightened. And also what do you do in case of an emergency tire change?

            1. Jam on Toast*

              Yes, there are torque wrenches that can be set to a specific foot/pound. A car’s manual will identify the torque specs. Many companies now have locking nuts to prevent tire theft. You need a special adapter (which should have come with your car) in order to unlock the nuts and take off the tire. My Corolla, which is not a fancy car, has locking lug nuts.

              Rust can also cause lug nuts to fuse to the bolts, especially if you don’t change your tires regularly/seasonally. This can make it almost impossible for an average person to remove a tire on the side of the road. Putting Never Seize or similar anti-rust compound on the bolts when you change your tires can prevent this.

      2. Seashell*

        In the US, some people get that kind of thing through their car insurance or some get a membership with AAA (judging from above, I guess that’s AA in other countries, but that’s Alcoholics Anonymous here), but I don’t know if it’s a universal thing. If you don’t have coverage, you would have to call a tow truck or push your car to the nearest mechanic.

        1. SarahKay*

          I’m in the UK and we make AA work hard for a living – it does double duty as a car breakdown cover company, and Alcoholics Anonymous :-)

      3. amoeba*

        I’d assume stuff like putting on my safety vest, securing the site, putting up the warning thingy (no idea what it’s called in English? Warning triangle?). At least those were the ones drilled to us in first aid classes when we touched upon the subject – follow-up accidents are a real risk!

        (No idea how many of those are standard/mandatory in the US though, but generally showing an understanding of safety considerations seems like a good thing…)

        1. amoeba*

          In addition – I also don’t drive, so I assume people who did driver’s ed would typically know more about this than me. But I’ve been in enough cars as a passenger that a general idea of safety considerations isn’t bad to have – I could always be in an accident where the driver is incapacitated, or end up as a first aid giver when passing on my bike!

          1. Allonge*

            A visibility vest is required equipment here (European country), yes. It does not stop bullets or cars of course, it gives you a bit more chance to survive as other drivers notice you sooner.

            1. amoeba*

              Yes, same here – you’re supposed to put it on as soon as you leave the car on a motorway (or wherever pedestrians aren’t supposed to be, usually). In addition, the warning triangle thing is also mandatory, which you put up a few meters (or whatever) behind you so oncoming traffic sees you and doesn’t crash into you. (Bit scary to imagine being stuck on a motorway shoulder in the dark without any of those things, actually, wow!)

          2. Emmy Noether*

            It’s just one of those neon yellow reflective vests. They’re mandatory here since like a decade ago.

          3. scandi*

            in my country you’re required to have a high-visiblity vest anda reflective warning triangle in the trunk in case of accident or car breaking down. put the vest on so passing drivers can see you, and set out the warning triangle an appropriate distance from the car (many are attached to the car with a rope, so you walk until the end of the rope to get the correct distance). then you’re supposed to move away from the road to make sure you’re not hit by a passing vehicle. this is only if you car breaks down so that it can’t be moved completely off the road and remains either in a lane or on the shoulder of the road. and obviously if you can’t place the warning triangle safely, you don’t but then you have to call emergency services so they can send out a police car to direct traffic safely.

      4. Allonge*

        In my country it would be (absent any injuries):

        – think before you do whatever you do and try to make sure you and other passengers are not in danger – watch which side you are getting out, watch out for kids etc.
        – move people out of the way of further cars (most of the people should get off the road and stay there).
        – put on reflective vest (required to be in cars)
        – if possible, move the car to the side of the road / off the road / as out of the way of other cars (whatever is reasonable)
        – set out warning signs for other motorists (e.g. reflective triangle you can put on the road/roadside some distance behind you is standard required equipment for cars); make sure car is as visible as possible (lights on, both side indicator lights flashing)
        – unless whatever is wrong is something you can easily fix (most likely not), call for assistance

        1. Nodramalama*

          Um yeah no one I know carries any of that. It’s pretty much put on your hazards and get out of the car. If you’ve managed to pull over, that’s a plus. None of which seems useful for an interviewer.

            1. Nodramalama*

              But that doesnt have anything to do with being a useful interview question. It doesn’t demonstrate problem solving or critical thinking. It’s like asking someone “what do you do if your clothes on catch on fire?” yeah, they probabky know about stop, drop and roll, but knowing it or not knowing it has nothing to do with a person’s job unless they’re in emergency services.

          2. Allonge*

            Hm – I would recommend putting a visibility vest in any car, to be honest (unless it’s completely unaffordable), it’s a really cheap way to get safer. I have one in my bicycle bag (no car). And, like I wrote, it’s mandatory here, with the triangle and a basic emergency medical kit as well as some snow-related things in the winter.

            But other than that – I was not arguing it makes it a good interview question, I was answering your question on what else is there but calling assistance. Practically everything else that can make you safer.

            2. amoeba*

              Yeah, the cheap ones here are like 8 € and you only need one per car – I’d say compared to the cost of a car (and considering the potential benefit), that should be affordable for most people.

      5. Pescadero*

        “What other answer is there but call whatever road aside assist exists?”

        1) Just call a normal tow truck
        2) Tow it home yourself
        3) Fix it yourself on the side of the road

        I’m 50, and I’ve been driving since I was 16. I’ve never had (or used) roadside assistance.

        I have called tow trucks to tow vehicles to a shop or my home.
        I have towed vehicles myself/had friends tow my vehicle.
        I have repaired vehicles on the side of the road, or in parking lots.

    11. Glory Anna*

      I don’t drive and thus have never owned a car to break down. I rely entirely on the excellent public transport where I live. Anyone blankly staring at me because I say “I don’t know, that’s not a situation I’ve ever experienced or ever expect to experience” would certainly be communicating something about the limitations of their awareness of other people’s circumstances and life experiences, and their blinkered and self-centred approach.

    12. Bast*

      I have a hard time not answering questions with “it depends.” Because it really does depend where I break down, and where I was going. I live in the middle of nowhere. I have broken down on my way to work in the middle of a very rural area with poor cell service where I had to walk to the only gas station around (thankfully I was not that far away; if I had already passed it there would have been nothing around for another 15 miles), call my husband, call a tow, and then get an Uber to work (got lucky there too, because this is not an area where Uber is readily available). If I am on my way somewhere less urgent (I have also broken down at the movie theatre) I made all the necessary calls, having the car towed to a shop a few miles down the road, called my husband to come get me in a few hours, and then went in to see a second movie, since I may as well pass the time doing something enjoyable.

      1. Usually lurking*

        I’ve joked before that when someone asks about my greatest strength/weakness the answer is the same – I answer every question with “it depends”! And I typically do, unless the question is provided with a lot of context. I completely respond differently depending on the circumstances and particulars of a situation!

    13. Nonsense*

      You were thrown by a completely unexpected question in your interview but you can’t figure out why other people are thrown by a completely random question in their interviews? Well, I suppose this gives some insight into how you manage.

      1. Tea Monk*

        I laughed but it’s true. An interview is a very artificial stressful situation so of course people won’t problem solve the way they’d do if they had an actual problem.

    14. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      The oil one is a weird question. Unlike the “how do they approach a problem” ones like “how many ping pong balls fit in a 747” there’s a right answer. There are just a NUMBER of right answers! And yes, I’d start with “the ground” too. Then start listing OPEC countries and mention the Carboniferous period.

      1. amoeba*

        Yeah, haha, as a scientist, my first thought was definitely geological, not geographical! I’d have been like “well, the ground, sure, but where exactly? Something with sand? What about fracking? Oh no, I don’t know any details” and never thought about countries at all, haha.

        1. bamcheeks*

          It sounds like the first half of a joke to me– I’d be trying to think of a sweary pun on olives, sunflowers, peanuts, avocadoes, etc.

        2. Dinwar*

          Same here. My answer would have been “Microscopic marine organisms, probably diatoms and forams and the like.” In my case the question WOULD be relevant, though. My answer shows that I approach things form a paleontological perspective, which shows a lot about my background. Someone who answers with a more geophysical answer, or tectonic answer (“ancient seas, though it migrates through the sediment”, something like that), or a drilling answer, shows me what they’ve studied and worked on in the past.

          Don’t get me wrong, there are FAR better ways to do this. Including “So tell me a bit about your professional background.” Just saying, this wouldn’t be a wildly out-of-context question for me, as I’m actually supposed to know this!

    15. I own one tenacious plant*

      Oil comes from the ground is 100% the correct answer because geology. If he wanted to know about the economics of the oil industry he should have asked a better question.

      I don’t own a car. But if the bus breaks down I wait or walk. Or, if I’m driving for work, I hope I have a good communication device and call for help. And prepare to wait for many many hours as I work in some VERY remote places.

    16. RagingADHD*

      People don’t blank stare at the interviewer because they literally would not be able to cope with a breakdown. They are staring because that’s what people do when you throw a total non-sequitur into an otherwise normal conversation. I have a blurting problem and have thrown out plenty of non-sequiturs, and this is exactly what happens 99 percent of the time.

      You find it amusing because you know it’s coming and you aren’t being put on the spot. I suppose if the job requires a lot of thinking on your feet and responding to people acting bizarre, like dealing with the public, it might be useful. But otherwise, I think it behooves you to keep in mind that the interviewer is the one acting weird, and the candidates who are nonplussed are the ones reacting normally.

  9. niknik*

    #2: I’d be tempted to put one of these kids toys there with a water wheel. Or go big and get an aquarium !

    1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

      Or a Japanese bamboo deer scarer (shishiodoshi). I enjoy the sound, but it might irritate bosses enough to actually do something about it.

    2. TooTiredToThink*

      I had one of these weird leaks and while mine was much more easily traceable (no idea if they ever fixed it), I actually put a plant under the leak.

      1. Paint N Drip*

        that was 100% where my mind went with this :)
        I know I’d absolutely dropkick a plant just sitting on the floor at least once, but you could do so many lovely aesthetic things with a plant on a stand/column or even hang it (although with the ceiling already leaking, maybe not a trustworthy location)

    3. haunted pencil*

      Or mirror the company’s behavior re the leak: they have done nothing, so perhaps the employee should do nothing. Literally. Don’t bother putting a bucket there, and don’t clean up the water. Let the water pool onto the ground and leave it there. (And wear rainboots on rainy days so this method doesn’t take you down!)

      1. Zelda*

        If there isn’t already a mold problem, this would ensure that a mold problem develops, right in the LW’s daily airspace.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Yep: if this building isn’t already riddled with mold the company is luckier than it deserves to be.

        2. BlueCanoe*

          Yes. OP, please do contact OSHA for your own health as well as anyone else in the building or anyone that might work there after you. Mold exposure can trigger lifelong issues for sensitive individuals.

          On a lighter note, if you choose to make a waterwheel or paper boats in the meantime, please do send pics :)

    4. ExplainiamusMucho*

      True story: Our high school roof leaked like crazy whenever it rained. For some reason, it never got fixed (it was apparently a major overhaul). Then one day, the board overseeing all the schools in the region visited our school – on a rainy day. When they entered the cafeteria they were met with the sight of a literal lake filled with little paper boats (made by enterprising freshmen). The roof got fixed after that.

        1. OkelyDoodle*

          OP here … It’s not a particularly well-trafficked area, so as tempted as I am to go big for the show, I fear all effort would be lost. That said, the whole water wheel idea definitely has some appeal.

    5. AnonInCanada*

      What made me raise a Spockian eyebrow was: if OP#2’s office is on the 2nd floor of this 15-storey building, what’s going on up on floors 3-15?

      Short term solution: buy an umbrella. Long term: find another job in another building, because an unattended leaky roof today becomes a collapsed roof someday. Then you have much bigger problems.

      1. Strive to Excel*

        That means either:
        a) OP is on a section of the floor that doesn’t have building above them (sometimes 1st and 2nd floors in particular will be larger and then have higher towers.
        b) That’s not a roof leak, it’s a pipe leak.

        I hope it’s a.

  10. Yours Sincerely, Raymond Holt*

    The elephant question may well turn off good candidates, or at least have them starting with a red flag hanging over the role.

    It would make some people worry that the hiring manager is a bit of a douche or that the workplace isn’t very evidence based.

    That said, LW, you sound brilliant and very experienced as an interviewer, so maybe the rest of your interview will balance that out.

    1. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      I would find this elephant question very useful – as a red flag there are likely to be BS gotcha people and stupid gimmicks there.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Same with the tree and animal questions that were so prevalent for a while. I did have a a great tree answer all ready to go, and I’m slightly disappointed that no one asked it.

    2. Tinkerbell*

      The other big caveat about these elephant-type questions is, every boss pulls them from the same handful of sources and then feels clever about it. Candidates who have done interviews in the type of industries who use these brain-teaser questions have a very good chance of already knowing the question and the supposed “best answer” (either by having read the same sources or having been asked a similar question in another interview), which gives them a huge but almost random advantage over candidates who haven’t encountered that particular question before.

      1. MsM*

        Yeah, I’ve never actually had one of those questions in an interview, but I went to business school, so we got training in how to answer them in case we did decide we wanted to go to the kind of companies that use them. (Or used to, at least.)

    3. All het up about it*

      I don’t mind a singe “silly” “personality” question in an interview. But I’d rather throw it out at the end, and make it clear that there isn’t a wrong answer. This elephant one seems like a weird middle ground one that I don’t like. Like is there a right answer to it? Maybe?

      I also don’t mind a weird question in an interview because I’ve worked in many places where they do demonstrate something about the personality/fit and someone’s creative thinking, which was often applicable. But if you’re just doing data entry in a cube farm…. those things might not be important.

      I’ll also just fully admit that I think sometimes interviewers throw them in to break up the monotony of so many interviews in a day. Not a good thing, but I think it happens.

  11. Limdood*

    LW2
    I’d be seriously concerned about retaliation for an OSHA complaint IF the complaint ends up making the business jump through a bunch of hoops/costs them significant money/otherwise inconveniences them in any way.

    Yes yes, retaliation is illegal, especially for OSHA reports. Yes yes it’s an anonymous report…

    But it seems like it’s HIGHLY likely that there is only going to be one suspect for who called OSHA on the business, no matter how justified. It’s also a major headache to deal with a business that might think you are the one responsible for costing them time/money by calling out something they were quite content with ignoring. Despite the illegality of it, there are countless hard to prove or difficult to explain ways in which a business can make the life of one of its employees a living hell if they have a mind to.

    Not that you SHOULDN’T necessarily report this….heck, it could be a major health or structural issue that is steadily getting worse. But be ready to document behavior (in case you need to demonstrate patterns), see if you can possibly have other people use the desk for a time (in order to make it harder for the company to pin down the reporter), and just generally be aware of the possible fallout.

    1. Tinkerbell*

      This. Personally, if the dripping noise was the issue, I’d run a piece of yarn or string from the leaky spot in the ceiling down to the garbage can on the floor and just leave it there 24/7. When the water starts coming through, it will run down the string silently instead of plopping and driving you nuts. (This doesn’t solve the mold/mildew/structural issues, but it at least lets you ignore the leak as much as your employer is doing…)

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        Wow, what a great idea. I never knew this trick. Because yeah, the dripping into the bucket would drive me mad and prevent me from working.

      2. Thinking*

        We do not know how tall the ceilings are, whether OP can reach it or has a safe way to do so.
        And then there’s the mold on the string.

    2. Susan*

      The LW called it a campus, so they might have a health and safety committee, which would be a better place to start.

      1. Acronyms Are Life (AAL)*

        Agree! It sounds like an employer of a decent size, so there should be some sort of internal safety representation that accounts for things that would be OSHA reportable, such as personnel injuries, and ensuring compliance with OSHA and other national and state safety, health, and environmental regulations. They would be the people I start with since likely whomever they sent out to look at it didn’t inform the safety people and hopefully OP has a good team that would at least look at it from the mold, mildew, and structural integrity point of view. At least starting with them would be better if OP wants to raise an OSHA concern, because then they can show that it was not an ‘incorrect elevation to outside authority without following proper process’ or however else their organization may try to spin it.

    3. Midwest Manager too!*

      FWIW, just the mere suggestion of “banding together as tenants of the building to submit an anonymous OSHA report” was enough to trigger a full-on reinstallation of a bank of windows that had been leaking since the building was built.

      Mold was growing on the METAL windowsill, over the PLASTIC outlet, and directly on the GLASS. Every time we reported it to the landlord, some handyman would come by with a bottle of bleach solution to spray it down (it was never enough and always came back).

      The person sitting at the desk nearest the issue had a documented mold allergy and was constantly in misery. Add to that 2 employees nearby were pregnant, and 1 was in the middle of infertility treatments (mold is REALLY bad for pregnancy and fertility). During a 1:1 with my supervisor (one of the pregnant employees) I brought up the health risks to her and reminded her about our allergic coworker, and suggested that we make a report as a group. Exactly 1 week later we all received notice from TPTB that they were going to rip apart the wall and reinstall the windows properly, with mold remediation.

    4. Anon Facilities*

      It’s not an OSHA violation. Large scale facilities are going to have leaks, there are ways they can mitigate but it’s really going to come down to the prioritization. If this is a company owned facility it’s a funding issue.
      If you are leasing space your management can raise it as a lease violation but there’s also only so much they can do if they have already tried patching and may decide it’s not worth the effort to force a fix and have to move.

      At most I’d ask if you can move or rearrange the office so that this is a dead space where sometimes you have a leak.

      1. Ace in the Hole*

        Exactly. OSHA is concerned with serious safety hazards. A big slippery puddle on the floor *would* be an OSHA violation… but there is no big slippery puddle because they mitigated by putting a trash can under the drip.

        The regulations are working as intended: the company voluntarily corrected a potential hazard before anyone got hurt without any enforcement action necessary.

        1. I Have RBF*

          IIRC, OSHA would consider mold is the workplace a health and safety issue.

          Uncontrolled leaks are a recipe for mold. Even with a drip bucket in place that has to be managed by an employee (an administrative control), the mold hazard is not properly mitigated, which needs to be an engineering control, as in a) stop the leak, and b) mitigate the mold in the ceiling.

          So no, the issue is not, in fact, corrected. It is only partially mitigated via an unreliable method (an employee who changes a bucket.)

          1. Ace in the Hole*

            I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that administrative controls aren’t acceptable by OSHA standards. Engineering controls are preferable and more reliable, yes, but as long as the administrative control is effective it’s totally acceptable.

            Second… there is no (federal) OSHA standard I can find that specifically addresses mold. The closest I can find is standards on general workplace sanitation, specifically 1910.141(a)(3)(i):

            “All places of employment shall be kept clean to the extent that the nature of the work allows.”

            That’s extremely vague. You could also bring in the general duty clause about keeping the workplace free of recognized hazards… but “mold somewhere in a building” isn’t in itself a hazard. Most buildings have some amount of mold somewhere. Mold spores are present in almost all environments. You’d need evidence that the amount and type of mold was abnormal and having (or likely to have) significant effects on human health. Since there’s no indication that anyone is getting sick, expecting OSHA to intervene is a huge stretch.

            She’d probably have better luck calling local building code enforcement. That would document any structural damage that might be a safety issue, which she could then take to OSHA if necessary.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        A constant leak every time it rains for 10 YEARS boils down to “large scale facilities are going to have leaks”? Nah. OP’s employer sucks. It sounds like they never actually tried to find the source of the leak, just tried to mitigate the effect of their being one. This isn’t like, yeah there was leak A and then fixed it and then a bit later there was leak B, and it’s a recurring issue. This is the same spot they’ve been ignoring for years. Maybe they did get a quote and it’s too much to be worth it and OP’s not privy to that, but it sure as hell sounds like they plain didn’t bother.

      3. Thinking*

        Like when the weakened ceiling falls on someone? FFS, we can’t know that this isn’t very dangerous.

  12. Size*

    Got to say the answers here gives me a fair idea about how the commentariat’s brains work. Maybe it’s a good question after all. I’d hire you, Meerkats.

  13. Yours Sincerely, Raymond Holt*

    Interview questions like the elephant one throw up a further question for me.

    My instinct would be to ask a clarifying question, which is how I handle being asked a question that confuses me. EG “That’s a good question. Can you tell me what you’re trying to understand from me with that question, so I can answer it in the most useful way?”

    But I think that would seem difficult to a lot of interviewers, right? Like I was challenging the question? Even if said politely?

    I could just give some BS of an answer off the top of my head. Chances are the questioner has no idea how to transport an elephant either so what the hell.

    The problem is the second, BS answer tells you absolutely nothing about me, and you’ve already incentivised me to BS you with some nonsense.

    The first answer is me trying to be collaborative, helpful, trying to truly understand what you mean.

    But sometimes questions are just seen as rude and challenging even if asked in a very polite, professional tone, and truly motivated by trying to understand what people mean.

    1. Ellis Bell*

      I think the reason that it can be seen as rude or challenging to question the question, is because you’ve caught them with their pants down. You’re asking what information they’re actually seeking and if OP’s boss is any indication, they don’t really know what information they’re seeking and now they’re in a position of admitting they have no idea what they’re looking for, they’re just poking the interviewee with a stick. The reaction they are looking for is a delighted gleam, expressions that you love puzzles and then to say something that makes them feel they’ve uncovered the real you, in a way that you couldn’t have prepared for, and therefore aren’t lying to them or fooling them. It’s beyond stupid. If they really wanted to know “how your brain works”, they’d ask about how your brain works in the job role, or even your hobbies, or why you made certain career or education decisions.

      1. misspiggy*

        That’s really helpful for me in understanding why some people don’t like questions being asked of them. Thanks!

    2. Allonge*

      Eh, with these obviously-theoretical questions, it should be more than ok to ask for some clarifications. They want to see how I think, right? I, strangely, need information to make a plan for random stuff.

      That said, I might be too delighted by an elephant mention in an interview, so my first question may be ‘is this something that comes up regularly at this job, are there lots of elephant-related issues’?

      1. Emmy Noether*

        I think there are two types of reactions one is likely to get. Either the interviewer will think gathering more information is a positive. OR they’ll be annoyed that you “can’t just go with the flow and answer a simple question” or you’re “overcomplicating it” or something.

        Maybe one doesn’t want to work for the latter type of boss anyway, so…

        1. Worldwalker*

          Definitely not. Someone who wants decisions made and expensive processes planned with inadequate information is going to be bad to work for.

    3. RagingADHD*

      I think asking for more information gives them exactly what they purport to be looking for – insight into how you think.

      Whether or not it’s perceived as rude or interferes with your chances of getting the job depends entirely on whether or not they want someone who seeks more information and gives a considered answer, or whether they want someone who throws out the first idea that pops into their head.

      Unfortunately, interviewers who think this kind of question is cool tend to not be the kind who actually know how to apply that insight constructively.

    1. Lady Lessa*

      Also, TJ Newman. Former airline stewardess, now excellent thriller writer. I highly recommend her.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I read her first one and it made me so tense I haven’t been able to read another. Right after Falling comes Drowning? No thanks.

    2. Magda*

      #4 I had a lot of feelings about, haha. On one hand, most novels don’t get published traditionally, so realistically OP could probably proceed through the process of trying to get an agent and even a book deal (2 separate processes) before doing anything messy like bringing in HR. The process is very slooow, so you’ll have plenty of time to talk to HR when it seems like it’s actually happening. If you go that route, a pen name really doesn’t work super well because the author is expected to do a lot of marketing and in-person appearances, so it’s a bit tough to stay “really” anonymous.* However, if you decide that process isn’t for you and want to self-publish, then you really could use a pen name, and most of the marketing is likely to be buying ads etc that would allow you to stay anonymous, meaning you probably don’t have to tell HR either. So I would say don’t get ahead of yourself yet, there’s a relatively small chance you’ll have to deal with these concerns.

      1. Magda*

        *There is a sort of “third option” where you go with a very small traditional publisher and no agent, but honestly I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but either way you’ll still know if you’re winding up there with time to talk to HR when the decision is more “real.”

      2. lyonite*

        Agreed about the publishing process being very slow–if you’ve just finished the book now and are about to start querying, you’re at least two if not three years out from traditional publication. And so many books don’t make it through, I don’t think there’s any point in giving yourself the trouble of bringing it to HR until you’re a lot closer.
        But I disagree about the trouble with having a pen name be hard to keep secret. You might do some publicity and public appearances, but believe me, the odds of anyone paying enough attention to make the connection is vanishingly small.

    3. amoeba*

      Oh god, that book made me so angry though (I’m from a pretty closely related field and it… just wasn’t realistic enough to cut it for me, like, at all!)

      1. Meep*

        That is because it is Star Wars/Reylo fanfic. And while trying to handle sexism also did the whole nonsensical “she is a (sorta) queer virgin”. And don’t even get me started on the absolute obsession of Adam Driver’s hands!

        (With that said, I still have her trashy Vampire-Werewolf romance book, the Bride, on my reading list because I need a laugh.)

        1. amoeba*

          Yeah, that does explain a lot. I also remember some things like “wtf, why would *that specific kind of biologist* need *that particular lab equipment*, this makes zero sense!” combined with “this is not how conferences work in real life??”

          (I mean, I did my PhD in Europe, so that might explain some of the differences! But for me, there as just enough weird details to make it annoying instead of fun.)

          1. amoeba*

            I mean, it was also weird because you’d think she’d know first hand! But maybe she just had a very different grad school experience than me or the editors changed a lot, who knows.

          2. Strive to Excel*

            This makes me wonder if authors introduce deliberate inconsistencies to avoid the exact problem LW #4 is considering above.

          3. Meep*

            Its not how conferences or grad school works in the US. I thought it was because Hazelwood is technically Italian. lol.

            1. amoeba*

              Haha, no, I’ve been to conferences in Italy and… no! Also, she supposedly did her PhD in the US…

              (Honestly, I sincerely doubt she’s an actual scientist. The story just doesn’t hold up. Also, there’s author photos of her on the internet – I’m *positive* somebody would have leaked her real name and affiliation by now if she was *actually* a neurobiology professor!)

    4. Abogado Avocado*

      LW, whatever you do regarding use of your name or a pseudonym, if you publish, buy defamation insurance.

      I know two authors who lost the rights to their books in libel litigation because the plaintiffs claimed that — despite changed names, scenes, etc. — the scenes depicted the plaintiff in a false light. In both cases, the plaintiffs knew the authors professionally. And even though the books made money for the publishers and were minor bestsellers, the publishers’ standard contract (which both authors signed) put the duty and cost of defending libel litigation on the author. Neither author could afford the cost of defending the lawsuits and, therefore settled by giving the publication rights and all future profits to the book in issue to the plaintiff. Fast forward to today: both books are out of print and will never be re-published in the authors’ lifetimes (because the owners of the rights think they’re defamatory).

      So, whatever you do, buy defamation insurance.

      2. NotAliHazelwood*

        This is good to think about. But also, is this common for works of pure fiction? I mean, I say I’ve set the novel in my industry but basically that’s like, I am a consultant for libraries and I’ve set it in a fictitious library in a fictitious town with fictitious characters. There is no one that’s even loosely based on a real person. There’s also nothing that’s particularly…defamatory?

        I mean I realize that people could still assume it’s about them but surely that’s true for every novel in a realistic genre?

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          If they do sue for libel the burden’s on them that you defamed them specifically and be able to prove it. If they happen to run across an embarrassing habit you gave an imaginary character that they also have, they can’t win a suit unless they can prove you knew of it and put it in the book to ruin their reputation.

          1. fhqwhgads*

            This assumes you have sufficient funds to have a lawyer defend the suit. The reason they “win” without proving anything is by being willing to go through with the whole thing in the first place.

      3. Elizabeth West*

        Yikes. D:
        Lucky for me, I have no expertise in anything, so all my stuff is fantastical bullsh*t with a sprinkling of poorly misunderstood physics and no resemblance to anything or anyone.

    5. Meep*

      TBF, the majority of her stories are repackaged AO3 fanfic of Rey and Kylo Ren that she just used her experience in academia to sell a new non-space setting.

  15. Benji*

    #4: I think you might be putting the cart before the horse here. First you have to get an agent. Then you have to get a publishing deal. Then and only then would you have something you might need to alert your employer about. On the other hand, if you are self-publishing under a pseudonym with no author photo, how on earth would your employer ever know it was you? If you brought a completed but entirely unpublished book to your boss for their approval I’m afraid that would be like bringing your diary for them to read.

    All that being said, if you’re worried about being recognised within your industry when it eventually is a bestseller, it probably means you need to change the setting in the book to something that gives you plausible deniability. I say all this as someone who wrote a very ‘spicy’ book I had to tell my fairly conservative employer about before it was published due to outside employment restrictions in my contract. On assurances it had nothing to do with our industry, they wished me well and ignored it. They didn’t ask to see it either. Except colleagues, including my managers, who learned about the book were an entirely different story. So my final advice is if you’re writing stuff you’d be embarrassed for them to associate with you, you might want to rethink whether you’re ready for your book to be out in the world.

    1. Tinkerbell*

      LW4, you definitely don’t need an agent these days – the vast majority of “spicy” romances are self-published, and the money is trending that direction too. Publishing houses are taking fewer and fewer chances on new romance authors, preferring to put their advertising bucks in hotter genres behind famous names, so self-publishing is almost certainly the way to go.

      I’ve done this (kind of) – I’ve published a dozen books, some with a publisher and some without, and two of them kinda-sorta are based on my experiences with a certain volunteer group. As in, if someone read the book and knew me, they’d possibly give me a side-eye because really, you expect to meet a handsome stranger who’s amazing in bed doing THIS? And yeah, the background details are based on things I learned volunteering, but obviously my life is not a romance novel :-P Those two books have been out for years now and I’ve never had anyone say anything – YMMV, of course, but I think you’re probably fine as long as you’re not describing your own job in such excruciating detail that everyone will know the pseudonym was you!

    2. Magda*

      Dang I should have kept scrolling down before making a similar comment above. Sorry to be repetitive!

    3. Ashley*

      Publishing insider here.

      All of this is true, and if you get a publishing deal the editor will absolutely go over all of this with an author anyway. Publishers don’t want to get sued; they have their own legal reviews.

      The cart is miles down the lane and around the corner from the horse in this case.

    4. NotAliHazelwood*

      Letter writer here! Yes I realize this is all very preliminary, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take for Alison to answer my letter! If pursuing a traditional publishing route I certainly wouldn’t bring it to my employer unless I was clear that was something likely to happen. Self publishing is a more viable route. How would they find out? I don’t know—maybe I tell some friends and a friend inadvertently mentions it to a colleague? I realize some of this is within my discretion and control but it’s something I’d like to think through because I have a job that pays well and a like a lot and a novel is a hobby that will likely not pay much of anything. It’s not worth jeopardizing that even if the chances are slim.

      Regarding whether this is something I’d be embarrassed for them to read: if a coworker was like “hey you wrote a book! I love romances, I’d love to read yours” that somehow that feels different to me than “here CEO, I wrote a novel about our industry and I need you to read it—by the way there is sex in it.” But maybe that’s just me!

    5. learnedthehardway*

      Self-publishing is a “thing” now – it’s entirely possible for the OP to publish their novel digitally on Amazon or wherever, and never use a publishing company.

      Which brings me to the point that the OP should DEFINITELY use a pseudonym if there is any chance whatsoever that clients or their employer or future potential employers would object to the contents. Do NOT bite the hand that feeds you – don’t even nibble!

      In my industry, there was someone who was tossing around the idea of writing a sitcom about the industry. It would admittedly have been VERY funny, but based on some of the things that actually happen in the industry. However, it was very rapidly made clear to the individual that they would be fired and never work in the industry again, should they follow through with this idea.

      1. Dahlia*

        Self publishing is definitely a thing. If you just want to have a copy of your book that looks offical and an amazon link to send people, that’s great! Go with amazon or another self-publishing company.

        If you want a career publishing, self-publishing is a full-time job. You need to learn marketing, you need to pay a significant amount of money for editing and a cover, you need to know your rights since you don’t have an agent to protect you. It is not easy and you may end up paying more money than you make.

        Depends what you wants.

  16. Square Root of Minus One*

    LW1 : I wonder if those brainteasers have the (intended or not) effect to weird out, and effectively screen out, people with a super low tolerance for general absurdity.
    The only time I got asked one was for a government job and, while I didn’t take that job, I took another in gov’t and it doesn’t seem so off-base.

    1. allathian*

      Yeah, the sometimes byzantine bureaucracy of government certainly does require the ability to deal with general absurdity. For a long time I had a coffee mug with the quote “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.” Sadly I forgot it at the office in March 2020 and when I returned, I couldn’t find it anywhere.

      I can deal with absurdity at work but I have a fairly literal mind in the sense that absurd interview questions tend to throw me off.

      1. All things considered, I'd rather be a dragon*

        “You don’t have to be crazy to work here. We’ll teach you!”

    2. CV*

      Aha, so possibly screen out some portion of neurodivergent people.
      My household is entirely neurodivergent, but recreational absurdity is part of our home life, so it’s much more likely we would freak out the interviewer than the other way around.

    3. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

      Welcome to the public sector! Where order (red tape) meets chaos (2 laws that directly contradict each other).

      Having said that I don’t like those questions either. I prefer to make up a hypothetical job related situation that doesn’t really have a right or wrong answer to see HOW the candidate thinks. ‘How would you prioritise these two calls of equal severity?’. Each tech has their own way.

      (Actually there is a wrong answer: delete them from the queue and hide in the loo)

  17. J*

    One of my friends can only work 20h a week due to disability and is planning to disclose that at the final stage of the interview process… I thought asking for parttime hours should rather be done early, but maybe this differs if it’s due to disability? I feel like chances are that all of this is going to be a big disappointment and I hope he doesn’t burn bridges if they offer him a job and he says “ok but I’m going to work 20 hours a week instead”. What do you think?

    1. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

      Disclose disability after the offer if you can do the job with reasonable accommodations. If you need something major changed then you do it earlier.

      I’d pull the job offer if someone said they could only do 20 hours a week regardless of the reason why because that’s not an accommodation we can handle. And you’re right, I’d have a dim view of that person.

      I disclose I’m disabled fairly late in the process because truthfully I don’t need much more than a special chair and a parking spot.

    2. bamcheeks*

      (Speaking from the UK, where our disability legislation is different) — I have counselled lots of people on how / when to disclose a disability, and that does seem like the worst option. Your friend will have invested a lot of time in the interview process; but they have no offer so it’s easy for the company to decide that Candidate B who comes with fewer ~complications~ just happens to have the edge on him. I generally recommend either doing it right at the start of the process, so that you know the interviewer is proceeding on the same expectations as you, or after you’ve got an offer, so you know they want to hire you based on your skills and experience and if they decide your requested accommodations are too onerous they have to say that. Doing it in the final interview process seems kind if lose:lose.

      BUT everyone has different tolerances and priorities, and ultimately it’s 100% up to your friend. As a coach, I get people to think about the pluses and minuses of disclosing at different stages but stress that there is no perfect or correct way to do it and that it’s their decision.

    3. Emmy Noether*

      We had a candidate ask for part time at the offer stage. It was for childcare in that case, not disability. Really pissed off my bosses, who pulled the offer (to be clear, I didn’t entirely agree with that decision).

      If she had put it in her application materials from the start, I would have advocated to interview her anyway – the role was hard to fill and I personally thought someone part time was preferable to nobody. It’s hard to see from the outside if roles can be reshuffled to make them part time, but it’s better to find out earlier in the process.

      I also don’t think refusing to hire part time is disability discrimination if the job needs to be full time. So I don’t think the disability changes things.

      You’d have to be sure to deliver one hell of an awesome interview to think that you’d be discarded because of the part time thing before, but not after.

      1. learnedthehardway*

        I can’t see a request for a position to be switched from full time to part time going over well during the offer process, ever. I mean, if the company wanted a part time staff member, they would have advertised for one.

        Companies have to make REASONABLE accommodations for people with disabilities. Asking for half the hours needed to do the job is not a reasonable accommodation.

        If someone wants/needs part-time hours, they are better off to request that in the first interview. They don’t have to say it is for disability reasons.

        Eg. I applied to a role that was supposed to be a full-time permanent position. I wanted to be on contract and part-time. I explained this when I talked to the hiring manager. As it turned out, they were open to the idea and I got the role I wanted. But I had also had that conversation with 3 other companies that couldn’t accommodate my request – I saved a lot of time by being up front in the first interview.

    4. WellRed*

      I feel like it really depends on the job. If they need a full time person, your friend just wasted everyone’s time.

    5. Person from the Resume*

      No. The difference is that your friend has a limitation that means they cannot fulfill the basic duties of the job – being full time. If she was interviewing for a part time role, she’d know it. If they hire your friend part time then they have to hire someone else part time to do the other half of the job and basically no company wants that complication.

      In the case of the question to Alison, the LW believes she can fulfill the duties. She’s confirming.

    6. EA*

      If the position demands 40 hours a week, cutting the time in half seems outside of the scope of reasonable accommodations. This doesn’t seem like a good approach to me.

    7. ReasonableAccommodations*

      This is not something that would generally fall into reasonable accommodations territory and is unlikely to be successful if the job was not advertised as part time from the start.

      I realize there aren’t a ton of part time jobs outside of retail, service industry jobs, and a few other industries, but it would generally be a significant hardship to the business to hire a half time employee (or two halftime employees) instead of a fulltime employee when fulltime is planned/expected.

    8. Nightengale*

      In the US, general advise is to disclose a disability after the job is offered but before you accept. There are definitely exceptions such as needing an accommodation for the interview itself.

      There is also a requirement that employees be otherwise qualified and able to fulfil essential job functions with or without reasonable accommodation. Many employers are not going to consider permanently cutting the hours in half to be a reasonable accommodation.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        I agree; that’s a pretty big revamp for a full-time job.

        Keep in mind also that, due to recent events, accommodation laws could change and that would alter the approach.

    9. Bossy*

      Personally I think that’s not cool – why on earth would your friend not just look for a part time job. I would seriously have pause about a person like this. And for what so they can have something to rail about when they are rejected? People love to play silly ass games and it is so freaking annoying.

    10. DJ*

      Your friend could enquire whether the position could be worked part time when position is first advertised. Some companies are happy to offer a part time working arrangement especially when it’s a bulk recruitment for several positions.
      Then if the answer is yes, ask questions around whether this needs to be stated in their application, mentioned at an interview or wait until the job offer.
      Although once I applied for a job (I was studying part time) where I’d given up on trying to get part time arrangements for full time advertised positions. So I’d decided to just get a job, defer and sort it out later. So I stopped disclosing wanting a part time arrangement. To my surprise the interviewer found out I wanted a part time arrangement and upon job offer raised this saying knew I was studying, they had other part timers and could offer this.

    11. LL*

      They should ask this up front, because it’s extremely unlikely that a company that’s advertising for a full-time position would agree to make the position part-time and waiting until later just wastes everybody’s time.

    12. J*

      So this friend had his interview today and asked about the parttime thing at the end of his interview. They didn’t immediately say no — they will consider and let him know. So that’s a tentatively positive result? I’m surprised.

      Maybe it helps that this is somewhat of a niche field and good people can be hard to find, although I don’t think that that plays a very big role, because this is an entry level position — this friend has just graduated.

      I’m in the Netherlands so we don’t have the exact “reasonable accommodations” laws that you in the US have. We have something where the government pays for any physical accommodations that you need (like special furniture, automatic doors, Braille equipment) and people can get a job coach.

      Apparently they didn’t ask him any “give me an example of a time when…” questions, which also surprised me. We mainly practiced those.

  18. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    4. This is why I write fantasy. With enough changes you can draw on your working knowledge yet have it differ enough to not be traceable. How would your characters react doing tech support for a transport system that relies on flying mattresses strung together?

    Add the kind of absurdity that the interview question in letter one gets away with and you can get away with anything.

    1. MsM*

      I mean, I don’t write stuff based on my job because I don’t think anyone wants to read about my job no matter how much I fictionalize it. Flying mattresses sound fun, though. Or maybe if you actually did have to transport elephants for a living.

    2. Lexi Vipond*

      Is that the Calder Road? I don’t know, I think you’d be better going onto either the M8 or A702 from the bypass.

      1. Teaching teacher*

        My classroom also has had a leak for ten years. They’ve tried to fix it. It’s been patched many times. There were two separate roofing companies up there in the last year redoing the whole roof. If I called OSHA to complain, I literally don’t know what they could even do that they haven’t already done.

    4. KitKat*

      We drove Brighton to Edinburgh once on vacation (Americans, various reasons for driving rather than train).

      Anyway, we got stuck in traffic on the M1 and our car was swarmed by bees.

      I’m trying to figure out how to work that into my elephant interview answer.

      1. Shirley Keeldar*

        It’s definitely relevant information, because elephants are scared of bees. (True—I am not making this up. Some farmers keep elephants out of their crops with beehive fences.) You don’t want to be trying to transport a panicked elephant, so avoid the M1 at all costs.

  20. r..*

    LW1,

    the ultimate problem with brain teasers is that the answers they produce tend to be not open to comparison with other candidates, and at the end the interview process on the hiring side has only one goal:

    To screen out incompetent candidates, and to select the candidate you believe most capable to do the job you want them to do, and at a price you are willing to pay.

    Everything else you do in hiring is subordinate to this, and consequently anything that does not serve to further this is nonproductive use of time. Hence questions that lead to non-comparable answers are useless.

    For example, consider the following two possible answers to the question:
    1) “I’d ask what business need is furthered by transporting the elephant, and select a suitable strategy to pursue this need that may or may not involve transporting a live elephant from Edinburgh to Bristol”
    2) “I’d call up the nearest zoo with an elephant, ask who they use to transport elephants, and inquire for the prices of said operator to transport an elephant from Edinburgh to Bristol”

    There’s no way to objectively rank one of those answers above the other, it all comes down to what you end up liking more. In other words, you’d be basing your hiring decisions on the personal preferences, vibes and biases of your interviewers, not based on objective criteria.

    That is, in general, a Bad Idea ™.

    1. KateM*

      It wasn’t said it was a live elephant, though… maybe Boss is trying to catch you at assuming things that were not said.

      1. r..*

        If you want to test for critical thinking/questioning assumptions, there are far, far better ways to actually ask good questions about that are actually useful.

      2. Richard Hershberger*

        Games with pragmatics: extremely tiresome. In linguistic terms, the elephant being live is the unmarked form. Pretending otherwise just marks you as a douche. Here is my standard example of pragmatics: Bob: “I need a ride downtown.” Jim: “I am driving there.” What just happened there? On a literal level, we have two unconnected statements. But on a pragmatic level, Bob has asked for a ride and Jim has agreed. If Jim then goes off on his trip leaving Bob stranded, Bob is on solid grounds for thinking Jim is a jerk. Some forms of neurodivergence would constitute an exception, but speaking as a the father of a neurodivergent teenager, figuring out how this stuff works is critical to figuring out how to function in society, so figure it out. I will help where I can, but ultimately it is on you,

        1. metadata minion*

          Augh, thank you!

          And in this sort of situation, you’d ask clarifying questions in real life that would pretty quickly flag any kind of amusing misunderstanding involving people with different industry standards for default “elephant” before you started hiring large animal transportation staff to move the ELEPHANT model telescope lens.

      3. Insert Clever Name Here*

        It wasn’t said it was a full sized elephant either, so it could just be a 2-inch figurine.

        Although if I got this question and answered on the assumption it was a live, full sized elephant and the interviewer said “AH HA! You assumed it was alive! If you would have asked you would have found out it’s DEAD” I’d be rolling my eyes and removing myself from the application pool. I wouldn’t want to work for someone who was going to punish me for making reasonable assumptions.

      4. Worldwalker*

        Yeah. Maybe the boss’s little kid left their stuffed plush elephant at a hotel and wants it back NOW. Maybe “elephant” is a jargon term for a large piece of machinery with special transport requirements. Maybe it’s a valuable antique elephant statuette, which is large, fragile, or both.

    2. learnedthehardway*

      The second answer is objectively better, because it lists an actual process to accomplish the goal of elephant transportation. The first one really only restates the question.

      So from that POV, the question has elicited whether the person will come up with an actual strategy/process, or if they will just dance around the problem. “Concepts of a plan” is not a plan, kwim?

      1. r..*

        Spot the lucky soul who’s never worked in areas like systems engineering, requirements management or other fields involved in stakeholder need analysis. :-)

        Here’s the thing: People will ask for instead of actually stating the problem they want to see solved; in a very significant fraction of those cases the requested solution will either be worse than other possible solutions to the problem, or will actually fail to solve the problem.

        Taking a solution (“transport elephant to Bristol”) that was proposed without stating the actual problem (which could be anything from “no more space for elephant” to “a court ordered us to”; also, why does it have to be Bristol?) always runs into the hazard not catching onto those problems until it is very late (and very expensive).

        Hence answer one circles back to business needs, acknowledges that the business indeed possibly needs to transport an elephant, but also questions them (it certainly is an unusual enough situation that further inquiry would be quite reasonable) and acknowledges that the ultimate solution doesn’t necessarily involve around the elephant, Bristol, or both.

        From this perspective, answer two is substantially inferior to answer one, because answer two potentially fails to discover a solution considerably cheaper than sending old Ellie and a bunch of Banana leaves on a roadtrip across Britain. Answer two isn’t a bad answer, but it’d flunk on a systems position for example.

        That’s part of what makes brain teasers such poor questions: They tend to have many different answers which are very context-sensitive while also being disconnected — necessarily disconnected; the theory of the brainteaser is precisely to ask a disconnected question — from the actual context of the position you want to hire for. This disconnect is then filled in by the biases of the interviewer and what the interviewer thinks is best, instead of any actually objectifiable definition of ‘good’ or ‘best’. In other words, we’re back to hiring based on intuition, not feeling and the realm of Bad Ideas. :-)

  21. crb11*

    You’d fail my interview. Missing the A74(M), and the most sensible routes out of Edinburgh would be the A702 or more likely M8, particularly if we’re starting at Edinburgh Zoo which is on the west side of the city.

    1. Bella Ridley*

      That would never be a problem. As everyone knows, the kitchenwares industry would be pleased to have that published, as it is an entirely accurate reflection of their day-to-day work.

    3. Sylvia Fisher*

      Good lord did I need this today. You’ve just reminded me that I had been re-listening to MDWAP and put it down a few months ago. Time to rejoin Belinda Blumenthal and her hijinks in the pots and pans world!

    4. Rusty Shackelford*

      I really do love the way Rocky manages to work some of his business acumen into his fiction. There was one scene where Belinda ponders which account a certain expense should be charged to, which is beautifully absurd considering everything else.

  23. Poppy*

    #1 “Flat-bed lorry, with the elephant shackled by the feet. If you use an enclosed lorry, it will lean against the sides and break them. Next?”

    1. Seashell*

      Hopefully you aren’t getting the elephant question from an American interviewer, because lorry isn’t a well-known word here. I think I only learned it from crossword puzzles. :-)

      1. Czhorat*

        If it were in America they’d probably be moving the hypothetical elephant from New York to Pittsburgh.

        1. Phony Genius*

          In that case, it would have to start with how they used to transport the elephants when the circus was in town: walk them through the Midtown Tunnel to the rail yard and load them on a train.

          1. Czhorat*

            The circus doesn’t use elephants anymore. The only NYC elephants I know of are in the Bronx Zoo.

      2. Stanley steamers*

        A lot of Americans have read British books or watched British TV/movies or generally been familiar with British slang. We’d know what a lorry is or could figure it out from context clues.

        Or just really lean into stereotype of an ignorant American and tell the interviewer it’s a stupid question and they’re an idiot for asking it.

        1. Spencer Hastings*

          Yep. This American has known what a lorry is since the age of approximately 6.

          Seashell’s post gives us all a bad name.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      Or it’ll be sedated prior to being put on the transport and lying down, only taken out of sedation upon arrival. Else it needs to be on a transport it can’t destroy accidentally.

  24. Coffee*

    LW4: how do you plan to market the book without showing your face or any identifying information? Drumming publicity for a book in overcrowded media is difficult and time consuming process so you need a good plan

    1. Spacewoman Spiff*

      Knowing how many people tend to attend book events or read book reviews, I think there’s not that much risk of being recognized this way. I mean, sure, absolutely possible, but as long as someone can’t type the author’s real name into a search engine I find the book, I think it’s probably fine. The only exception would be if the book becomes a huge bestseller featured on all the morning shows, and in that case, fantastic, you’re probably earning good money off it and don’t need to worry so much about the day job! (I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because I attended an event where one of the authors works as a lawyer, and writes romance novels. So she’s out there showing her face, but all her work is under a pen name so her clients won’t realize it’s her.)

  25. Small mind*

    if you’re self-publishing, especially with a pseudonym, there is like a zero percent chance your company will read it (or most people for that matter; most self pubbed books are barely purchased). You’re really over thinking this.

  26. Susan*

    I don’t see the elephant question as even a particularly good brain teaser. I might be turned off by that in an interview, along the lines of it seeming like not an innovative place to work.

    But my answer would be, “Historically, by rail”.

    I have the advantage of living near a place where a famous circus elephant died in a train accident.
    https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/new-research-solves-mysteries-about-jumbo-the-elephants-life-and-mysterious#:~:text=After%20the%20show%2C%20Jumbo%20and,Matthew%20Scott%2C%20by%20his%20side.

  27. Nodramalama*

    I feel like I’d ask so many follow up questions for LW1. I guess that’s the lawyer in me

  28. Susan*

    My answer would be: Historically, circus elephants were transported by rail.

    I know this because I have been to the site of Jumbo’s tragic 1885 death by locomotive, which is commemorated by a life size statue in St Thomas, Ontario, Canada.

    So as brain teasers go, this one is not much of a teaser.

    1. Richard Hershberger*

      Surely you are overgeneralizing. In 1885 essentially all long-distance overland transport was by rail. I don’t think we can apply this to the internal combustion engine era.

      1. Lexi Vipond*

        My mum’s cousin once met an elephant that was being transported through his village just by walking it down the road.

  29. dogwoodblossom*

    I follow a Thai elephant rescue online and have watched them transport many an elephant. The answer is “in a big truck.” If you want more specifics I’d add “with an open top, a hose with a water supply, and a bunch of banana leaves.”

  30. I take tea*

    #4 Good of you to at least think things through a bit before. I remember a middle aged male teacher at the university that published a book about a middle aged male teacher having a relationship with his young female student (or maybe even students, I don’t remember) under his own name, and the book was prominently displayed in the library where I worked as student worker at the time. I had such a hard time to suppress my ick-reaction and treat him respectfully after that.

      2. I take tea*

        It was policy to always buy the books written by staff. But I would not have put it on display at the desk.

  31. Irish Teacher.*

    LW1, while this probably isn’t something you could say, even if there was any benefit to that question (which I doubt), I really doubt the ability of the interviewers to interpret them. Understanding how people think is…a pretty complex area and I really don’t think somebody who probably has little or no qualifications in psychology or education or anything along those lines could accurately deduce much from one question, especially in a stressful environment and one where people are often carefully presenting an image.

    I mean, say somebody said something really out there…I dunno, maybe like they’d strap a load of helium balloons to him and use them to lift him, would that say the person was a creative out-of-the-box thinker or that they were an attention-seeker or edgelord who was really invested in being quirky and hilarious and was more interested in getting a reaction than in getting the job done or would it be an indication that they were mocking the question and showing disdain for it and the questioner or just an indication they were completely thrown by its randomness and said the first thing that came into their head? Would it indicate they were very good at thinking on their feet and coming up with something really new or that they were really bad at thinking on their feet and so thrown they said something ridiculous?

    I could see people giving the same kind of answer for any one of those reasons, so…how do you know which way to read it?

    For a more obvious answer, does saying, “I’d contact the zoo and ask for advice” show that the person recognises the importance of expertise or does it just indicate they are completely stuck and can’t think of a response themself? I could see people giving that answer for either of those reasons and without knowing the person, I couldn’t make a guess at which one applied.

    What might be a bit more useful for pointing out the flaws is that I could really see this leading to discrimination. “How people think” and especially their answers to questions like that are likely to be heavily influenced by things like their neurotype, their background, their nationality and ethnicity and possibly even their age and gender and since there is a lot of interpretation involved in determining what a person’s answers tell you or what makes a good answer, it is likely the interviewers could give preference to those who think like them, which could mean preference to those with a similar background.

    1. Slow Gin Lizz*

      All of this. Would it help for OP to ask their boss what they would do if they had someone who didn’t do very well in the rest of the interview but answered the elephant question well vs. someone who did slightly better than that first interviewee but flubbed the elephant question? Would they use the elephant question as a tiebreaker? How much weight are they putting on it? The answers to these would then lead to: what, then, is the point of asking this question in the first place?

  32. Dear Liza dear liza*

    #2- the word campus makes me think this might be a university. If so, that leak is there until the building is gutted or torn down. I’d recommend low-key scoping out colleagues’ work spaces and jumping on any openings.

    1. epicdemiologist*

      I work at a university. For at least 5 years, we’ve had a surprise fountain that wells up in our mailroom with each heavy rain. Plan on the drip being a permanent fixture.

    2. Pescadero*

      My building has had a leak in the second floor men’s bathroom ceiling… for the entire 31 years the building has been open.

      It leaked before the building opened, and they’ve never been able to fix it.

      They’ve replaced the drywall ceiling 5x in the 14 years I’ve worked here.

    3. ScruffyInternHerder*

      Bingo. Its most likely (without looking further into it but given its the 2nd floor of a 17 floor building) a leaking storm drain riser somewhere…or at least there’s a leak on the roof proper and its following a path of least resistance to your area.

    4. fhqwhgads*

      15 floors makes me think it’s a giant company with multiple buildings adjacent to each other.

  33. Randomize Me*

    #2: I’m sorry about the leak. That must be so annoying. BUT, I wouldn’t recommend collecting the water for your houseplants because who knows what kinds of chemicals the water is picking up as it flows through the walls to the ceiling above your desk?

    2. Frank Doyle*

      Yeah, second floor of a 15-floor building and it’s *rainwater*? What a convoluted path it must travel.

    4. Paint N Drip*

      Just as a data point, our biggest water issues at work have always been problems with the plumbing of interior bathrooms. Wouldn’t recommend reusing that water either

      1. learnedthehardway*

        Which brings up the idea of telling building facilities that you are concerned that the water comes from a pipe leaking in the building, and seeing what they do about that.

  34. kalli*

    The only answer to how to transport an elephant is obviously to suspend it from a carrier plane. Everything number one A-OK!

  35. Emmy Noether*

    For the elphant question, my mind immediately went to the Bill Murray film “Larger than Life”, which I watched many times as a child. Is the elephant’s name Vera? Can it do tricks?

  36. Falling Diphthong*

    Relevant family anecdote:

    Back in the 60s, my uncle was a cop in a small town. The circus came through, and when it was time to load up the animals the elephant became annoyed and opted to leave instead. The first few calls about an elephant using the garage as a scratching post, the police told the caller to drink some coffee. But after enough calls they sent out a car to check, and sure enough there was an elephant.

    Plan A: Park two police cars to block the elephant’s path. This is not something elephants find intimidating, it turns out, and the police cars were trodden

    My uncle wound up following behind the elephant, updating on his police radio, so that once they found the circus they could get a truck and animal wranglers to the right part of town.

    Moral: If you release enough elephants in Edinburgh, they will diffuse through the country side and eventually one will wind up in Bristol.

    2. restingbutchface*

      Wait, that wasn’t Freya the elephant, was it? She freed a camel, before going on the run.

      Another fun elephant fact! There’s a theory that the most famous Loch Ness Monster photo is actually the trunk of a bathing elephant from a nearby travelling circus. And the monster is sometimes known as Nelly. It all adds up and this goes straight to the top!

      *gesticulates to noticeboard covered in photos and red string*

    4. Dinwar*

      Had a similar experience. We had a few calls on a jobsite about emus. This was a construction site and the laborers were….well, they were laborers. The first couple of times we assumed it was someone who probably was on some recreational chemicals. This was Southern California, not Australia. Then an emu peaked into the window during a meeting with the site management team. We believed them after that!

      Fortunately for all of us the emus were tame and friendly (angry emus are something you need to see to appreciate). There was a farm down the road, and emus being curious dinosaurs they opened a fence and came to see what all the noise was about. The crews didn’t want to give them back–they’d become the site mascot.

    5. Elizabeth West*

      In OldCity, the Shriners Mosque was just up the street from the ice rink. Every year since I was a kid, the Shrine Circus would take place at the venue. One Saturday I went to skating practice and there was an elephant taking a walk with its handler behind the building across from the rink parking lot.

      Because I had a lesson, I was not able to go over and meet the elephant, to my great dismay.

  37. I'll have the blue plate special, please.*

    #2: A few years back, a pipe burst and flooded our office. Cleanup was done but the lingering damage caused mold that was overlooked in our building. A new hiree began getting sick. Someone filed an OSHA compliant that shut down the building for over a year to be fixed and forced management to solve the problem. We had to work at our company HQ for a long while but when we were allowed to come back, the building was in much better shape.

  38. RHinCT*

    Patching the ceiling on the second floor of a 15-ish story building to stop the rain coming down is absurd. All that would accomplish is accumulating water in the ceiling, and that would lead to the whole ceiling coming down. The only surprise is that after ten years of leaking like that the ceiling is still up there.
    If they aren’t going to fix the roof I suggest drilling a hole where it is coming down to minimize any accumulation. That might delay the ceiling falling on you. And keep the trash can there, of course.

    1. Nightengale*

      Now I’m thinking of the time a year or so ago when I was working in my office and heard the sound of rain. Thought, oh, it’s raining.

      Then thought, wait a minute, I work in an interior office in a hospital, it is literally a 2 minute walk to the nearest window, and the roof is several stories above me. My hearing is pretty good but I cannot hear rain from my office. I got up to investigate.

      What I was hearing was the sounds of drops of water from a broken pipe hitting the top of the ceiling tiles in the nearby exam room. Within a minute or two, what I was hearing and seeing was water dripping from the pipe through the ceiling tiles onto the floor and exam table of the room. I never did get my desk trash can back from when I shoved it under the leak before calling for help removing equipment and calling facilities.

    2. water gonna do what water gonna do*

      It also may not be coming from the roof. We’ve seen a leak that was caused by a faulty window install… The water was getting in around the 2nd floor window, traveling down the inside of the wall, then below the floor, and showing up as a leak in the 1st floor ceiling. There was no plumbing above where the leak was showing, so some investigating had to be done to find where the water was coming from, but where water is concerned, it will find a way.
      That said, OP, I’d report it to OSHA and they can figure it out with the building owner.

    3. Meep*

      My guess is the condensation pan for the AC unit on the floor/area is too small. We dealt with that problem at my old office for a good 4 years since there was some debate as to if it was the owner of the building’s responsibility or ours as a tenant. Started every June with the first monsoon. Took them literally forever to figure it out until the last year it didn’t leak anymore.

    4. Mentally Spicy*

      That’s exactly what I was thinking. I once lived in a house that had been split into two separate homes. The neighbour’s bathroom was above my living room and there was a persistent leak from their shower that, no matter how many times it was fixed, would keep happening. Eventually the entire plasterboard ceiling came down. It was completely rotten and mouldy. I dread to think of the state of that office ceiling after many years!

    5. Girasol*

      That what I was thinking: start with a little annoying drip, end up with a soggy ceiling and a pile of insulation on the floor. We had a pipe issue over my desk which resulted in a strange noise. Facilities made some sort of adjustment to stop the noise every time my office mates complained about it, but they didn’t fix it. Then came the morning that I squelched into my cubicle and dumped a pint of water out of my keyboard. You might remind your building folks that a stitch in time saves nine.

    6. JustaTech*

      The perfect opportunity for me to share an amazing true story about drop ceilings, leaks, and the IRS.

      Back in the late 1970’s/early 1980, the IRS had a tax return processing facility in Baltimore. Then they moved it to a new light-industrial/office complex out in the burbs. For a lot of reasons this move cut down on the number of people working and the time they spent working. To hid how far behind they were every evening a few returns they hadn’t managed to finish would get shoved into the drop ceiling.
      Then one day it rained a lot, and the roof leaked. The drop ceiling could hold those returns, but not once they were completely saturated.
      The ceiling collapsed, revealing the extent of the missed returns, all of which were now too damaged to process.
      So the supervisors start sorting through the returns to try and call back everyone who’s return hadn’t been processed to ask them to re-submit their tax return.
      One of the first people they called was my parent’s neighbor. He just so happened to be a reporter for the regional paper.

      To say it was a 9 day circus would be an understatement.

      Moral of the story: don’t expect the drop ceiling to cover your sins for long.

  39. Taketombo*

    It’s not OSHA your company needs to be reported to, it’s the local building services/inspection services department (ISD). Check the webpage for or call your town or city hall to determine what department issues building permits. They, or someone adjacent to them, can inspect your space and it if doesn’t meet building code will issue citation giving them some time – usually 30 days – to fix the issue. If it’s not fixed in that timeline there’s usually a string of escalations though fines and ending in condemning the space as unfit for habitation.

  40. restingbutchface*

    So re #1 – I love these questions. I would much rather sit around and discuss elephant transport challenges for an hour then tell people about my last project (which sadly did not involve elephants).

    However, I have never used them when interviewing. Not only do they stress people out, they’re totally there to try to gain some sort of insight into how people react to stressful or out of scope situations. There’s something else that does that just as well. “Can you tell me about a time a client/customer/manager/whoever asked you to do something outside your role?”.

    Let’s face it, very few jobs involve sitting around solving impossible problems and if you had a whole organisation of people who love that, your business would fold. These questions are so dated and honestly, a red flag for me.

    1. restingbutchface*

      Oh and what I find just so funny is that every company I’ve worked for who tells me they love my big picture thinking and creativity end up not enjoying those same skills. You can be creative for 15 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon, but most of the time, just do as you’re told.

      1. epicdemiologist*

        In the words of my kid’s first grade teacher: “Yeah, they talk a lot about critical thinking, but they don’t like it when the kids use it on them.”

    2. Czhorat*

      There’s also a background and class implication here; if you had an “enrichment” program as a grade schooler there could have been all kinds of these lateral-thinking type puzzles which not only gives you comfort with puzzles but might even have included something similar to the brain-teaser the boss is asking. Any interview question that sorts for things irrelevant to the job is a bad one.

      1. restingbutchface*

        “Any interview question that sorts for things irrelevant to the job is a bad one.”

        Yes. YES. Same with personality tests and IQ tests. Easy and technically legal way to ensure that you can avoid hiring a diverse workforce. Can’t bear it.

  41. Less sexy more librarian*

    In regards to L3: One of my mom’s dear friends from back in the day is a human Eyore, and we’ve described her that way for many years so it’s funny you use that term! Unfortunately that is who she is all the way to her core. She could be out on the most beautiful day with the most glorious weather and would focus in on the one cloud in the sky or the one fly that buzzed her head. For some personalities I think there’s just no changing it. I think Alison’s advice to effectively ignore it and change topics is probably your best bet, or perhaps asking for a change up of the seating arrangements if you start going crazy. I can only handle a short weekend visit from our human Eyore before I start to lose it, so imo that would be completely understandable!

    1. Aspiring Chicken Lady*

      I walked out into a beautiful summer day after work once, and a coworker said with the most mournful tone, “they said it was going to rain.”

  42. Poison I.V. drip*

    The leak is probably finding ingress through a window or other point of weakness in the wall just above the LW’s floor. Leaks like this can take a lot of detective work and follow-through to find and unfortunately sometimes not even contractors feel motivated enough to do it. Add to this the fact that leaks are usually thought of as a roofing problem but this is 13 stories below the roof, so whoever is responsible for facility maintenance may not be reaching out to the most qualified parties. Maybe LW could shame their management into doing something, like throwing the leak a birthday party, the way people have done for potholes.

    1. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Yes – fluid dynamics is weird, and water can travel long horizontal distances along the outside of pipes, ducts, conduits, and structural elements. If this building uses drop ceilings, then the spot over OPs head is probably a very slightly low spot in whatever the water is using to travel horizontally in the space between the next floor up and the drop ceiling.

    2. Phony Genius*

      In my building, we had a very similar issue as the LW. It was only resolved after a complete overhaul of the exterior of the building, including windows.

  43. InterviewTests*

    I once got a really complex, difficult physics question at an interview that they wanted me to talk them through in words. The type of thing that would normally require a ton of complex math to figure out.

    I spent almost 30 minutes reasoning out a bunch of different possible approaches, being told to go on each time I reached a logical stopping point or dead end that basically required starting over. I felt like I failed and left the interview both very late and convinced I’d failed miserably. Apparently I was the only candidate who did more than stare blankly at them and sputter a bit and I got the job.

    I have had jobs where you do have to reason things out based on too little information and not be intimidated by having an overwhelming problem and this might have been a decent test of how successful you’d be in the position. Of course, this wasn’t one of them :)

      1. InterviewTests*

        I did, and it was interesting work. However, they reneged on my working 3 12 hour days (it was one of my few fully onsite jobs) and the commute was too onerous for me to do daily (I was actually staying in a hotel for two nights a week and doing one weekly commute) so I ended up quitting.

  44. Ceraohil*

    Letter 2: look for a new job, get a new job, *and then* file the OSHA report**. (10 years of exposure to mold? Really? And you never threw a tantrum about being moved to a different spot?)

    ** I had to call OSHA on a job once after numerous pleas to higher ups went unheeded while I was there (and there was definitely retaliation for it). So the second after I started the new job, I was on that OSHA website, making it my own little burn book of safety violations.

    Letter 3: find a new job and when your boss asks why, mention that it seemed like the smart and inevitable thing to do what with your Eeyore coworker constantly being a sad sack all the time, saying the company is going to fail and everything.

    Yes these are napalm-level tactics with a significant risk of blowback and reference bridge burning so only the letter writers can decide if it’s worth it. But I’m in a VERY spiteful, petty, “just burn it all down” mood today (and probably for the rest of my live TBH) and maybe if more of us took that approach right now, other people might find themselves being a little less smug for like 5 seconds.

  45. Czhorat*

    I hate “clever” stunt interview questions.

    If you’re asking me how I’d transport an elephant you’d better be hiring me for a job at the zoo. This is *especially* true if you’re not hiring at entry level – people with a resume should have relevant experience that lets you know how they think. “Tell me about a professional challenge you had and how you handled it” also tells you how they think, but it doesn’t let you pat yourself on the back for your cleverness in asking something offbeat.

    1. noname today*

      My “ favorite” one (that I was asked) was “in the movie about your life what actor would you want to okay you…and don’t worry—you don’t have to tell us why you picked them”

      My silent reaction: ????? And then why the f ask if you don’t want to know why???????

      Spoke with a friend who was already working there afterwords. When they asked how the interview went, I shared the question—framed it as I thought it was a weird q and that they must have attended some workshop recently and misunderstood the approach. Turns out they HAD just attended a workshop on interviewing techniques.

      1. JustaTech*

        I was once interviewing for a job at an academic lab (so, people who aren’t very used to conducting interviews) and at the end in the “get to know you” portion one person asked me what dorm I had lived in at college.
        This was actually a reasonable question because at my (very obscure) school dorms are more like Hogwarts houses – it’s not just where you sleep but it’s your social group and each dorm has its own personality.
        I answered, and then asked how that person knew the school. “Oh, my wife went there.” “Oh cool, what dorm was she?” “Oh, I don’t know.”
        Dude, why did you ask me, if you don’t know the answer to the obvious follow up question? And if you don’t know your wife’s dorm then asking me my dorm doesn’t provide you any additional insight into me!

  47. Kesnit*

    #4
    A retired judge who sat in a nearby jurisdiction (and who still sometimes sits as a substitute judge) self-published a few fiction books about the legal community in this area. His characters are very obviously based on real attorneys. (His main character is not, but the secondary ones are identifiable. One attorney is referred to by his real name.)
    I found out about the books when I heard a sitting judge and the Chief Public Defender (who is in at least one of the books) discussing them.

    Although I don’t know what industry you are in, I would say in general that as long as (1) anyone identifiable is OK with being included, (2) you do not include a real person in a “spicy” scene, and (3) you don’t badmouth your company or a real, identifiable person, you will be fine.

    1. Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk*

      I have to ask…Martin Clark? I enjoyed the books of his I read, but I also come from the Southwest Virginia legal world.

  48. epicdemiologist*

    Now I’m wishing I’d gotten the elephant question so I could pull up The Ionian Mission and read the description of [spoiler] on board an early 19th-c. sailing ship.

      1. Dinwar*

        Somewhere in Africa, I believe….

        And to be fair, “He’s a musician” was not an entirely bad interview question for the purser…

      2. epicdemiologist*

        The sloth is cool, but I had a different episode in mind. (The ship was the Polyphemus; p. 165 in my Norton paperback.)

  49. el l*

    OP1:
    “Because unless the candidate completely fluffs the question, whatever it tells you is 100% subjective to you. Meaning, I or anyone else can interpret the answer a completely different way, and it settles nothing.”

    Long answer: These problems are just like STAR questions or SAT questions. They’ve been around a long time and people know how to answer them – which means your answer to them is more a function of “How much did you prepare for the exam?” rather than any other personal qualities.

    If you’re going to ask left field interview questions, they have to be unpredictable, and there has to be something specific you’re looking for. For example, “How do you plan to spend your signing bonus?” is problematic. BUT – it does tell you something about the person’s personality, and in some jobs there may be a particular personality type you’re hiring for. (Some luxury-sales jobs apparently grade you highly if your answer to that question is, “Buy handbags,” or whatever – as you understand their customer)

    “I want to see how they think” is not good enough. Maybe 20 years ago when they were first popularized, but not any more.

  50. Pretty as a Princess*

    #2 – I’m feeling extremely saucy today, but my reaction would be to just…. not place the trash can.

    Call your facilities department when the ceiling starts raining and make it their responsibility to come put out the trash can. If that means the carpet gets soaked, then that’s what happens. And then call them about the gross wet carpet. (Or the safety hazard that is the puddle of water on a hard floor)

    Alternately, determine the capacity of the trash can and let it sit in your office filling up. Don’t empty it. Keep calling them every time there’s a leak, and when the can gets full, call them and tell them they need to go dump it out because it’s heavy and you don’t want to risk it sloshing on you (a gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs, after all – and your trash can is likely 3-5 gallon capacity). If they don’t, well, then the can overflows. And you call them about the carpet/floor.

    The reality is there is a leak somewhere in a roof line or along a gutter, and the water is transiting along the exterior of a pipe until it hits a bend where gravity takes over. That’s what’s happening above your office. The fact that in 10 years they have allowed this to continue – I agree with those who suggested looking for a new job, if you have the ability to do so. (I know it’s always easy to suggest, but not always realistic to execute.)

    1. A Simple Narwhal*

      That’s a good idea, currently OP2 is “handling” it so they have little motivation to do anything else. Sometimes the only way to get someone to care about your problem is to make it their problem too.

      1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        TIL. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve explained that “our problems are more likely to be solved than my problems are.”

        1. Pretty as a Princess*

          And the corollary is that sometimes you need to make it extremely uncomfortable to be incompetent.

    2. Aggretsuko*

      One of the theaters I perform at has permanent leaks in places that the landlord refuses to fix. I presume this office has decided this is too hard to deal with and won’t bother.

  51. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    #1 reminds me of when I was a recruiting intern, writing my own interview questions. I thought I was so clever when I came up with “What would you like to avoid in your next job?” One guy said “paperclips” and just stared at me. lol

    I’ve been on the receiving end of a trap question. No matter which reasonable answer I gave, it was wrong. Finally I asked what the “right” answer was, and it was ridiculous. I did not appreciate that treatment and it really turned me off from that company.

    Recruiters, just be normal, please!

  52. el l*

    OP4:
    Don’t approach your company, but do decide whether you can handle the unpredictable outcome of it coming to light.

    Yes, professionals do publish novels set in their industry – but it’s not common enough that your HR/leadership has personally had this request cross their desk. Which stacks the deck towards them saying No, regardless of anything else.

    Next, it’s probably a similar problem to social media posts: Is there a role expectation that you have a quiet/bland public persona? There are lots of places where the answer is yes – if you’re a civil servant expected to be impartial, are somewhere in the national security apparatus, or if you work for a company with an Investor Relations department. If you’re in any of those cases, that’s a certain and consequential No there.

    That said – I want to tell you Yes. I want to tell you to trust in your own powers of persuasion if/when it comes to light, and that nothing will be affected. But this is definitely a scenario where people react unpredictably. Some may love that you did it and rate your higher, some won’t care, and some may decide they can’t trust you ever again. You just can’t know. Whether you can handle all that…that’s personal, and that’s up to you.

  53. Jessica Ganschen*

    If you’ve got a Mini Cooper, as many as four elephants can simply transport themselves. But of course, then they’d need a map with the route clearly marked, and possibly a per diem and/or mileage reimbursement. ;)

    (There’s a series of jokes about elephants that starts with, “How many elephants can you fit in a Mini Cooper? Four; two in the front and two in the back.”)

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Or you put the elephant in a refrigerator, and it reduces to a problem already solved. (Another elephant joke – how do you tell if there’s an elephant in your refrigerator? Footprints in the butter.)

      1. Elizabeth West*

        My favorite elephant joke:

        What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming?
        Here come the elephants.

        What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming with sunglasses on?
        Nothing; he didn’t recognize them.

        :)

  54. Bee*

    Please tell me that #4 is Rocky Flinstone, creative genius behind “Belinda Blinked” and sequels! lol

    1. Sylvia Fisher*

      Another commenter had the same brainstorm. Great minds? Now all I want is for a whole series where Alison provides feedback on all of the workplace shenanigans in Belinda Blinked!

  56. Ess Ess*

    My Oldjob used a brainteaser question in the interview. They really didn’t care what solution you came up with, they were checking how well you could communicate and explain concepts. Were you able to describe a process in a straightforward flow that could be easily followed (“I would investigate how to obtain an elephant including the cost and size, then send out a rfq for a transport company that could handle the size and weight with a preference on ones that specialize in live animals, and confirm that the delivery location had an enclosure large enough for the elephant”) or did you jump back and forth (“I would do this…Oh wait first I would do that… but before that I’d do X… Or maybe instead of Y — which I forgot to mention — I’d do Z … oh but wait that wouldn’t work … I remember seeing a documentary on elephants and they get seasick ” … etc)

  57. Skeptic53*

    When I was applying to medical school in 1980, one interviewer suddenly asked “How does a refrigerator work?” I explained it had a compressor, which compressed a gas & dissipated the heat with a radiator. The compressed gas was pumped to another compartment and allowed to expand, absorbing heat from the freezer and refrigerator storage areas. He looked disappointed and said “Why did I ask you that question?” I shrugged and said, “I don’t know, Boyle’s law?” He said “Nah, most people don’t know the answer and I like to see them squirm”. This ticked me off and I asked him “Do you know how a kerosene refrigerator works that doesn’t have a compressor?” (I had used one while serving in Peace Corps). He didn’t know and loved that I had turned the tables on him. I got accepted but chose to attend a different med school.

  58. DramaQ*

    I wouldn’t transport the elephant
    #1 this is not a rescue or a zoo which means you don’t meet AZA, federal or international standards and regulations for being able to home an elephant
    #2 You know nothing about elephants because you’re transporting a sole elephant. They are pack animals and will die of depression if they are alone which is why zoos are not allowed to have elephants unless they can properly house and care for a herd
    #3 You are asking someone who not only does not have a CDL license but doesn’t have any kind of license or permit to transport wild animals, especially large wild animals to move an elephant for you
    #4 how exactly did you get an elephant? Our local zoo brought in a herd from Africa and it was outlined the red tape they had to go through to bring them to the states. How exactly did you come about such a creature

    Now that we have covered all the red flags my question for you is why should I want to work for a company that deals in the illegal sale and transport of endangered species?

    I would not get the job. But I would pass an ethics course with flying colors and that would be the right answer for the type of work I’ve done for 20 years.

    1. Rusty Shackelford*

      Ah, but #3 is only an issue if they expect *you* to transport the elephant, and not to find a professional.

      1. Lexi Vipond*

        And presumably if someone *does* have a depressed sole elephant it would have to be taken to where a herd is.

  60. Youngin*

    #2 you need to attack that from the Mold and Mildew angle. Considering that is actually a pretty major hazard (there is no universe where I would’ve have been able to work there without having a bad reaction and getting sick constantly). If there is water running where it is not supposed to be, there is 1000000% mold all over the place.

  61. DivergentStitches*

    #5 I have physical limitations too so I’d be in the same boat.

    Would it make sense to ask something like, “can you walk me through a day in the life for this position” and/or ask to meet someone already doing that work, so that you can ask them specifically how physically demanding the job really is.

    1. AnxiousRobots*

      (#5 here) I actually got a chance to lift and see the equipment itself, also they described what I could expect (mostly photo taking and installing equipment). My nervousness was just in that some level of detail was left out, though in the end I didn’t get the position anyway

  62. Meep*

    LW#2 – have them check the HVAC/AC unit. My guess is that is where it is coming from. I used to work in an office that would consistently have the pan flood after the start of monsoon season. IDK why it took them 4 years to figure out that the pan itself was too small.

  63. Hyena*

    #1 is so funny, I actually got a similar question during the interview for the job I currently have (my first office job!). It was “what would you do if you suddenly had a real-life elephant” though, and there really were no wrong answers. I work for a nonprofit, the interviewer who asked is the director of the program, and the purpose was to just see if you’re more of a dreamer or more practical/realistic with neither type being “better” since both are necessary for a good team. She likes this question so much she brings it up as an icebreaker during team meetings occasionally and has an elephant poster in her office.

    I can’t really judge thought, I have a spotted hyena plush on my desk.

  65. CorgiDoc*

    The interviewer is probably looking for some kind of amusing story like “I would rent a tractor trailer and fill it with straw and coax the elephant onto it with bananas” or something equally ridiculous when the only real appropriate answer would be something along the lines of “I would contact someone that knows what they’re doing, maybe from the Edinburgh Zoo or the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Medicine to arrange transport for me because this task is so far out of my expertise that I couldn’t possibly know how to do it in a way that is safe for the animals, its handlers and the general public and also follows all laws and animal transport guidelines”. I can’t see the interviewer liking my answer as well, which shows how silly and useless of a question it is.

    1. Lexi Vipond*

      I’m entertained by the amount of Edinburgh knowledge this question is bringing out, rather than elephant knowledge.

    2. Bossy*

      This is what I was thinking – I’d call someone who knows what they’re doing. If I needed plumbing done I’d call a plumber, ya know? Meanwhile the interviewer basically just wants someone to engage with their whimsy with whimsy and would probably be annoyed at cut and dried practicality.

  66. Bruce*

    I’m going to bookmark the articles about brain teasers in interviews, they sound interesting…
    As a candidate I’ve done well with logic questions, but these sound more nebulous and ripe for abuse. As an interviewer I like to be more straight forward.

  67. Peter the Bubblehead*

    Back when I served on submarines, a popular final qualification board question was, “I’m a molecule of water outside the hull. Describe how I become a photon of light from the reading light in your rack.”
    That question made sense in the context of submarine qualification because you had to know, understand, and be able to describe every major system within the boat and how they interacted with one another to properly answer the question. It made sense in the context of the situation.

    Unless your company moves large animals for zoos, the ‘Moving and Elephant’ question is completely out of context and relevance.

    2. bamcheeks*

      … so now I’m wondering whether “Bubblehead” just a random username or some kind of submariner slang?

    3. Mentally Spicy*

      Just for fun, I’m guessing something like “the water molecule gets sucked up to use as secondary process water in the reactor. The reactor heats the water molecule, turning it into steam, which then drives a turbine, which then imparts its kinetic energy to a generator, spinning a conductor in a magnetic field and generating electricity, some of which goes to the propulsion system and a tiny fraction of which goes to your light bulb where the electricity heats up a tungsten filament causing it to glow and producing light photons.”

      Something like that?

  68. The Woodchuck Whisperer*

    I actually work in the zookeeping field, so how to transport an elephant is relevant. My old boss has a story about bringing an elephant into New York City for a Penn and Teller show. So I could give you a thought out answer to the question. But for everyone else…

    Better is to do what my other old boss did, which was say, “Tasks X, Y, and Z still need to be done by deadline A, how would you approach this?” There isn’t a right or wrong answer, but it’s examining how you think about the job itself.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        Ha, I love that answer!

        I’m in a particularly mentally spicy mood today so I did some calculations. The distance between Edinburgh and Bristol is around 680 km. That’s avoiding motorways, because I’m pretty sure it would be illegal to ride an elephant on a motorway. (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.)

        African elephants are pretty good long distance travellers and have an estimated daily range of between 50 km and 150 km. Let’s use the lower of those figures – we don’t want to exhaust our elephant!

        African elephants have a walking speed of around 6 kph so, if we assume we’re doing 50 km a day, that would take around 8 hours. That sounds about right. 8 hours of walking, then rest. Have some quality leisure time with your elephant.

        But wait! So far I’ve ignored the fact that you need to keep your elephant “fuelled”. Elephants can eat up to 150 kg of food daily, and spend 12-16 hours a day doing it. In addition they need around 100 litres of water a day. Now, obviously you can’t carry that with you. Probably you would need a system of support vehicles shadowing you, some with food and some with water.

        Clearly we need to build more time into the schedule for feeding. We don’t want an overtaxed, underfed elephant. (My dad always said: “you don’t want an overtaxed, underfed elephant” and I trust his judgement.)

        So let’s reduce the walking time to 6 hours a day. That gives the elephant more time to rest and eat, and of course they can eat on the move. Fortunately they don’t need a huge amount of sleep. Maybe 4 – 6 hours. Let’s assume 6, so that’s 6 hours of walking, 6 hours of sleep and up to 12 hours of eating/resting/quality elephant leisure time.

        So that means we’re going to be covering only 36 km a day. So we’re going to need about 19 days to do the journey. During which our elephant has consumed almost 3 tonnes of food and almost 2,000 litres of water.

        And of course, you would be a legend! (And possibly going to jail. But still, legend!)

        1. bamcheeks*

          You definitely can’t ride a bike or a horse on a motorway, but I don’t know if they’ve specified any other animals.

          1. Lexi Vipond*

            Cyclists, horse drawn vehicles, pedestrians and animals are explicitly banned from the Edinburgh bypass. I’d be surprised if the motorway rules aren’t similar, but I haven’t found anything specifically about animals (unless elephants count as slow-moving vehicles!)

            1. SarahKay*

              At 36km per day, I think it would be considered a slow-moving vehicle, if they couldn’t find any other reason to exclude it.

        2. bamcheeks*

          (Also I don’t think you’d need to bring food and water with you from Edinburgh. It’s not exactly a desert between Edinburgh and Bristol.)

          1. Mentally Spicy*

            While that is true (and I can’t quite believe I’m saying this) an African elephant’s diet consists of grasses, herbs, fruits, plants and trees. While I’m sure that many of those things can be found growing wild along the A1, I’m not sure we want our elephant to be constantly foraging for food. Better to feed it so it can concentrate on putting in the miles.

  69. Yes And*

    LW4: I work at an arts company, I have three published works in our field, and nobody in my office has discovered them in three years. Nor would I have expected them to.

    If your book sells well enough that it comes to the attention of people who aren’t looking for it, are you still working for this company? On the Venn diagram of “situations where your company finds out about your book” and “situations where you need this job,” I’m guessing the intersection is very, very small.

    Publish. Publish under your name or a pseudonym. Given the risk level, I’d say it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.

  70. Jennifer Strange*

    Guess I’m the only one who thought of NCIS with question 4. If you do end up publishing it under a pen name, make sure it’s not an anagram of your real name!

  71. KB*

    LW#2
    I was once with a building services manager and we happened to pass a spot in the basement where water always pools when it rains. Someone asked why it hadn’t been fixed. The answer was “We looked into it. It is coming from _____, and would cost at least half a billion (not kidding, billion) dollars to fix. It’s not causing damage, we’ve chased its whole journey, but the solution is a mop and bucket.”

    Now, I hope if this happened in an office area rather than a basement hallway (that they have waterproofed) they would do something to divert it from work areas!

  72. Yup*

    LW#3 A reminder that Eeyore was loved and accepted for who he was–a friend who was sad and a little depressed and still had something to contribute.

    1. Three-Eyed Minion*

      As someone who has been in a long-term relationship with someone with extended bouts of depression I can’t see Eeyore (and Marvin the robot from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) without starting to feel anxious for my own mental health.

      Being around someone with depression can be extremely taxing on those close to them.

    2. LW3*

      LW3 here…
      But this coworker is not my friend, and as I explained, the constant negativity is exhausting. I don’t know that they have depression – but the negative focus and comments from someone directly across from me can bring me down, which I don’t need.

  73. Bitte Meddler*

    I have had really bad interview experiences with brain teaser questions and one absolutely fabulous experience.

    The difference was that, in the great interview, once I got started on the answer, the interviewer jumped in with me as if we were solving the puzzle together as a team. He would say, “What if we did X?” and I ran with X, then pointed out a few pitfalls we might encounter with it.

    Then I said, “If we implemented Y and Z, though, it might mitigate the drawbacks,” and he ran with Y and Z and then discovered while talking it through that those had their own pitfalls. And so on.

    It was a blast.

    The brain teaser was, “How many ping pong balls would it take to fill that [door-less] cubical over there, and what problems might a cubical full of ping pong balls pose?”

    The interview was for an internal audit position at a consulting company. The role is, at its core, looking for problems and coming up with solutions so, in this case, I think the brain teaser was useful. It also showed that he and I would be a good working team (he would have been my grand-boss).

    Alas, they didn’t offer me enough money to take on the hours and workload of a public accounting / consultancy firm. But I love running into them — that Director and the rest of the team I’d interviewed with — at industry conferences.

    1. Grenelda Thurber*

      I don’t think it would be physically possible to fill a door-less cube with ping pong balls, not unless you can alter the cube (add something that closes off the opening) or alter the ping pong balls (glue?). Oh, but what if the cube doesn’t have an opening, maybe it’s a trick question? But cube walls typically don’t go all the way to the floor and the gap is usually bigger than a ping pong ball anyway. I’d definitely need more information about the properties of the cube….These questions always generate a 100 additional questions in my head.

      1. Bitte Meddler*

        And that’s exactly the conversation I had with the Director, LOL!

        I even threw in the liability aspect if the balls escaped the cube (we had decided to create a door from a large piece of cardboard) and someone rolled their ankle or broke a leg stepping on one. Or, if the computer equipment (monitor, laptop, and a printer) was staying in the cube, they could overheat from lack of airflow when completely covered in ping pong balls.

        It was actually a really fun conversation *because* of the 100 additional questions we came up with.

        And those 100 questions were the “right answer”.

  76. Betty Beep Boop*

    It is an offense in the City of Toronto to drag a dead horse down Yonge Street.

    When I lived there this was a running joke among my group of friends and we would compete with one another to come up with ever-more elaborate ways to get said dead horse out of town starting from, say, the Eatons Centre.

    The most elaborate that I can recall offhand involved a terrible physics joke about assuming the horse is spherical, a trip to the Canadian Tire a few blocks away for a trolley and a very large plastic tote, followed by the Yonge-University line, the Queens Quay Streetcar, the Centre Island ferry, and the Toronto Island Airport.

    I can’t say as our skill level at this predicted our success at interviews or in our respective careers, honestly. Although this may be because I always interview sober…

  77. tw1968*

    LW2: anon OSHA report, from someone that is concerned about a leak near a COWORKER’S desk that has been going on for a long time, I’d hate for someone to slip and fall in the puddle (and as another commenter said, don’t do anything, let a big puddle accumulate, because that is more dangerous)

  79. Meh.*

    I wonder what the guy who wrote the elephant question would do it they started asking for more information. Why is the elephant being moved? Is there a person moving with it? Is the elephant in good health? What are the traditional methods of elephant travel? It this a real or toy elephant? What is my budget? How far can an elephant walk?

  80. lolly*

    ~1: go to your company’s recruitment policy re interview questions – assuming you’re in the UK given the locations of the “brain-teaser” question, if you are recruiting for the NHS (JD, role and competency-based interview questions language would align) then HR/POD (whatever its called in your org) would have a lot to say about this question, most of which would be a “not if you want to continue working here”. If in a non-NHS org recruiting medical administrators then your org’s recruitment policy is still relevant, and if not explicit, ask your manager exactly what response discriminates a stellar/appointable/non-appointable candidate for the skills/experience/knowledge required for the role. It’s the sort of question that risks putting off competent skilled individuals if it’s irrelevant. whatever the type of medical administrator you are interviewing for, if this is something that’s needed, present a real potential scenario that would show how a person’s brain works to solve a problem within the actual regulatory/medico-legal landscape they would need to function in, not this.

  81. Yankee*

    #4 Check your employment agreement. My company prohibits “outside business activities” without prior approval, and publishing a book (on ANY topic) would absolutely fall under that.

    It’s not hard to get approval for something completely unrelated to work (for example, I own a condo and rent it out—the company had no problem approving this “outside business activity”), but the policy is used to prevent employees from doing anything that could be a conflict with work.

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