Most of you probably don’t know this but I’ve been going through an intensive interview process for a job at Google. The company, known as one of the most desirable on planet to work for, gets over one million applicants a year. It has a five-interview hiring process and is famous for the surreal, unpredictable nature of the questions they ask of their applicants.
I am currently in interview stage number three and I will share with you a partial transcript of my latest interview:
Google: You’re in a car with a helium balloon tied to the floor. When you accelerate, what happens to the balloon?
Me: I don’t drive.
Google: You’re not the driver. You’re a passenger. You’re holding the balloon. In fact, you’re guarding the balloon and being paid $20 an hour to monitor its behaviour.
Me: That’s a very special balloon. What colour is it?
Google: It’s black.
Me: Would it be fair to say that the balloon was imprisoned?
Google: It might be.
Me: I would love the balloon enough to set it free, and if it came back it was mine and if not, it never was mine.
Google: Okay, Mister Murray. You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown into a blender. Your mass is reduced so that your density is the same as usual. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
Me: I’m going to presume that I’m living in a supernatural world and that the blender has also been shrunk. If that’s the case then any effort to throw me into the blender would have failed and I’d be free to crush the blender without mercy, which is exactly what I would do. With a bat. One I conjured from this supernatural world.
Google: Okay.
Me: Aced it, didn’t I?
Google: What comes next in this sequence? 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66…”
Me: Superman.
Google: Why?
Me: You’d have to ask him, wouldn’t you?
Google: It’s true, Superman would be a very good job candidate. Okay, you and your neighbour are holding yard sales on the same day. Both of you plan to sell the exact same item. You plan to put your item on sale for $100. The neighbour has informed you that he’s going to put his on sale for $40. The items are in identical condition. What do you do, assuming you’re not on especially friendly terms with this neighbour?
Me: That is exactly the sort of thing my neighbours would do! They’ve been stealing my New Yorker magazine because they think that my wife and I throw too many parties. They’re assholes. They think we smoke too much weed and are always drunk, which simply isn’t true. Anyway, I would get my friend Steve to go and buy Don’s stupid, fucking table hockey set with my money, bargaining him down to $30, and then I would put that newly purchased table hockey set up for sale with mine, selling them each for $80 or two for $150. And then I would throw a big, fucking party.
Google: Thank you for your responses, Mister Murray, we’ll be in touch.