Saturday, June 07, 2008

Coincidence?!!!

In Amazon interview, i was asked a brain teaser during lunch interview with my manager.

"Imagine that you are driving to a very important meeting. You have a very important presentation to make in company's annual meeting. You have the only copy of the presentation on your laptop. You have to be there in the meeting. When you are driving through a hilly area, suddenly one of the car tire got punchured. You have no cell coverage, nobody to be seen nearby. You decide to change the tire and put in the spare one. When you remove the bolts of punchred tire, they roll down the hill. You cannot make it on time if you walk / run to the office and it is too far. What will you do?"

After going through one or two routes, i got the answer. Take one bolt from each of the other tires and fix the spare tire. So all 4 tires run on 3 bolts. Manager happy, me happy and i am an Amazonian now.

One week after joining Amazon, i am driving through Highway 520 in Seattle. Guess what, my tire blows. I park my car in the side of highway and change the tire, all the while thinking, man! the bolts shouldn't roll into highway. After putting in the spare tire, i take my car to tire shop to get a new tire. When they were removing my tires - bam! one of the bolts is broken. That needs to be replaced. So i am driving around in car with 3 bolts of one tire.

Amazon interview brain teaser... Tire puncture... 3 bolts per tire... Coincidence?!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wise answers have this unwise habit of coming true :-)