Why is the manhole cover of the sewer round? What is the empty cup mentality?

Why is the manhole cover of the sewer round?

A: Even if the round manhole cover is heavy, it is easy to roll to the destination. B: A dome can be covered at any angle. B: The round cover doesn't slide easily.

What is the empty cup mentality?

According to legend, cicadas could not fly in ancient times. One day, he saw a wild goose flying freely in the air and was very envious. It asked the goose to teach it to fly. Goose agreed happily.

Learning to fly is hard work. Knowing that he is afraid of hardship, he looks around for a while, runs around for a while, and doesn't study hard. The wild goose tells it how to fly. It listened to a few words and said impatiently, cicada! Got it! Goose asked it to try again. It only flew a few times, and then cried proudly, I know! Got it! Autumn is coming, and the geese are going to the south. Cicada really wants to fly high with the geese, but it flaps its wings and can't fly high.

At this time, cicada looked at the geese flying in the sky thousands of miles away and regretted that she was too complacent and didn't practice well. However, it was already late, so it had to sigh: late! Too late!

There are as many "cicadas" as there are around us. Complacency makes us short-sighted and complacent; Laziness holds us back and misses opportunities.

In ancient times, a man with profound Buddhist attainments heard that there was a venerable old Zen master in a temple, so he went to visit. When the disciples of the old Zen master received him, they were arrogant and thought, I am a person with profound Buddhist attainments. Who are you? Later, the old Zen master received him respectfully and made tea for him. But when the water was poured, it was clear that the glass was full, and the old Zen master kept pouring. He asked inexplicably, "Master, why do you pour the cup into it when it is full?" The master said, "Yes, since it is full, why pour it?" What the Zen master means is, since you are already very knowledgeable, why did you come to me for advice? This is the origin of the "empty cup mentality". Symbolically, the premise of doing things is to have a good attitude first. If you want to learn more knowledge, you should first imagine yourself as an "empty cup" instead of being complacent.

Why is the manhole cover round? The strange questions in the interview stumped the excellent students.

Nai and Enoch

What Microsoft wants is "people"-smart, studious, practical, confident, good moral character and strong team spirit. Riddle questions, reasoning questions, we have to examine the word "person". An excellent "person" is exactly what some famous enterprises are striving for, and it is also the direction of their series of test "strange questions".

Why is the manhole cover round?

This question was put forward by Microsoft to the interviewer. Looking at the questions raised by many famous enterprises in recruitment, such "strange questions" abound. A similar question is, how to move Mount Fuji? How many cars are there in America? How many architects are there in Hong Kong? In which direction can I open the car lock by inserting the car key into the door? Speaking of these tricky questions, how does Microsoft do it? But this is indeed the topic and admission criteria for them to seriously examine a group of outstanding candidates.

You know, Microsoft is one of the few large enterprises that young people all over the world yearn for, and a large number of high-quality young people take the entrance examination every year. And these questions they raised don't seem to be seriously assessing these highly educated people. Anyone with a certain level of intelligence can come to test.

In fact, we now know that not only Microsoft, but also many well-known enterprises, especially foreign companies, have used this strange trick to some extent when recruiting new franchisees.

Give a few examples:

1, you let the workers work for you for 7 days, and the workers' remuneration is a gold bar. Gold bars are divided into seven consecutive parts. At the end of each day, you must give them some gold bars. If you are only allowed to break the gold bars twice, how can you pay the workers?

Please cut a box of cake into 8 parts and give it to 8 people, but there must be another part in the cake box.

Xiao Ming's family crossed a bridge, and it was dark when crossing it, so there must be a light. Now it takes 1 second for Xiaoming to cross the bridge, 3 seconds for Xiaoming's brother, 6 seconds for Xiaoming's father, 8 seconds for Xiaoming's mother and 12 seconds for Xiaoming's grandfather. At most two people can cross the bridge at a time. The speed of crossing the bridge depends on the slowest one. The light turns on for 30 seconds and then goes out. Q: How did Xiao Ming's family cross the bridge?

4. A group of people have a dance, each wearing a hat. There are only two kinds of hats, black and white, and there is at least one kind of black. Everyone can see the color of other people's hats, but not their own. The host first shows you what hats others are wearing, and then turns off the lights. If someone thinks he is wearing a black hat, he will slap himself in the face. The first time I turned off the lights, there was no sound. So I turned on the light again and everyone watched it again. When I turned off the light, it was still silent. I didn't get a slap in the face until I turned off the light for the third time. How many people are wearing black hats?

It can be said that topics like this have troubled many outstanding university graduates with excellent academic performance and high aspirations. After passing the examinations of basic knowledge and professional knowledge, many people fell into these "strange questions" in several rounds of interviews of famous enterprises. Why do these famous enterprises, represented by Microsoft, set such examination questions and what kind of talents do they want to test? What kind of talents do they need?

We are used to our own "examination" method. For many people, these strange questions really make people unprepared and helpless.

The correct answer is not important, but the correct way of thinking.

So, what is the intention of famous enterprises to do this? Like most world-famous companies, * * * is characterized by regarding talents as life. They attach great importance to recruiting talents, and will never make a show or play tricks on such an important activity. Bill Gates once asked a classic "strange question": How to move Mount Fuji? When asked what kind of talents Microsoft is looking for, Bill Gates replied that we should examine whether the candidates solve the problem logically. For the question of how to move Mount Fuji, the correct answer is not important. What matters is whether you think in the right way.

I see. In March this year, Microsoft Shanghai held a campus recruitment activity in Fudan University. In addition to a programming question to investigate professional knowledge, there is also a "strange question": Please estimate the quality of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. This question is similar to Gates's Mount Fuji. The last conclusion is not the most important. The key is to show the examiner your method and process to solve this problem, such as how to quickly estimate the height of the bracket and column, the radius of the ball, and calculate the volume of each part.

Similar topics include: Needless to say, how to measure the weight of a jet plane? It takes 5 minutes to estimate the quality of a person's travel in light rain. These questions are all answered in a short time by asking some unexpected questions, examining your judgment, reaction speed and concentration, so as to see your all-round ability. And these, in the future work, may be the key to success compared with the knowledge that can be increased or decreased.

It seems that the "strange problems" of famous enterprises are not narrow and weird. In fact, their chess skills are higher. It is through such a more flexible and exquisite network that better and more potential talents are recruited. Many people are not used to their strange tricks when they give questions, mainly because we are used to exam-oriented education, and there are many rigid dogmas in our minds, so our brains are not flexible. In fact, this kind of examination has long been common in foreign recruitment, and many companies have special question banks in this field. As long as we consciously change our thinking and use more reverse thinking and divergent thinking to meet such problems, "strange questions" will not be so strange. Is "strange question" strange? Not surprising. Doing more such questions at ordinary times is also very beneficial to cultivate a person's good thinking habits.

Back to the problem of white hats and black hats mentioned above, do you know how many people wear black hats on the dance floor? In fact, this question tests your logical reasoning ability. You must make a hypothesis first. If only one person wears a black hat, he will slap himself when he turns off the light for the first time and sees everyone wearing a white hat, so more than one person will wear a black hat; If there are two black hats, two people only see the black hat on each other's head for the first time and are not sure about their own color, but when they turn off the lights for the second time, these two people should understand that if they wear white hats, the other party should have slapped them as early as last time, so they also wear black hats, so there will be a slap in the face; But the fact is that only the third slap in the face shows that there are more than two black hats in the audience, and so on, it should be how many times the lights are turned off and how many black hats there are.

Tang Jun, general manager of Microsoft Global Technology Center, said that the computer industry is upgrading every year. No matter how much you have studied in university, it is difficult to become a completely suitable "talent". What Microsoft wants is "people"-smart, studious, practical, confident, good moral character and strong team spirit. Riddle questions or reasoning questions are all aimed at the word "person" An excellent "person" is exactly what famous enterprises are striving for, and it is also the direction of their series of test "strange questions".

In front of a bowl of red beans and mung beans, give two empty bowls. You are required to pick up the red beans in one bowl and put the mung beans in another bowl within 10 minutes. Is this topic easy to do? Its secret is that the examiner gave you an extra bowl on purpose. Don't be cheated. Just pick out the red beans and put them in an empty bowl. After picking it up, there were only mung beans in the bowl. How's it going? Is it possible to see the mechanism of this kind of problem?

Just because you can't answer logical questions doesn't mean you have no logical thinking.

The new and different recruitment methods of famous enterprises have caused great repercussions in the industry. Many enterprises began to learn from them, and also added some flexible questions in the recruitment examination. It should be said that this is a good thing. But it should be reminded that this method is not an invincible magic weapon. Tang Jun once admitted that Microsoft's exam questions were also flawed. For example, not being able to answer logical questions does not mean that candidates have no logical thinking. Because some topics vary from person to person, there may be many excellent people who miss the enterprise in such an exam.

At the same time, in order to make their recruitment more scientific and reasonable, many famous enterprises have conducted strict training for examiners, so that they have a very professional standard. Because this test is aimed at examining a person's deep thinking, the conclusion depends largely on the examiner's personal judgment and feeling. So it seems that such an exam is simple and easy. In fact, it needs a higher configuration. It's not just about asking a few questions and asking answers.

Now some of our enterprises have gone astray when learning this kind of recruitment, and even turned good recruitment into a farce. For example, a company gave a topic to female college students: "What would you do if you needed to sell your body at work?" Such questions, no matter how perfect the purpose of your investigation, are disgusting and confusing. Another company gave two female candidates a topic: put on thin plastic gloves, put 100 mice in an empty room, and asked them to catch them with their bare hands within 10 minutes. When they finally calmed down from the panic and entered the role, it was time for the "exam" and they didn't catch any mice. The examiner said to them, "You were going to take the autopsy test on mice, but now you lost the chance ..." Such a topic is the real "strange question"; Such an exam is not only weird, but also a little scary.

For the selection of outstanding talents, no matter which recruitment method, it can't be a final decision. A person's ability and potential can only be truly discovered in long-term practical work. "Real gold is not afraid of fire" and "I am naturally useful". As long as all job seekers pay more attention to their studies, exercise their abilities of innovation, thinking and judgment, and shape themselves into a truly excellent "person", I believe there will always be good opportunities. Even if you fail to get into a famous enterprise once or twice, you will always make a comeback and have a bright future.