djrem
12th November 2008, 18:37
Lateral Thinking
Please white text your answers!
There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Every day he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it's raining! How can this be?
The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it. Alternatively, the man's daily job finishes in this very building halfway up, except when it's raining. Perhaps he's a security guard who makes rounds floor by floor in the morning and watches a security monitor in the afternoon, except when it's raining. It never said he takes the elevator before walking, just that he does both.
Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot-smeared window on the 26th floor of the office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped through it. After he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?
Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside. Alternatively, Mel's office was in another building, on the first floor, and he was looking at the 26th-floor window of another tower; "the window" in the second sentence then refers to that of Mel's office, not the 26th-floor one. Mel could also have had a balcony.
There was a hotel where the visitors complained about the slow moving elevator and how long they had to wait for it to come. It became so severe that the manager was asked to do something about it. If you were the manager what would you suggest?
Most of us would come up with ideal answers like - call the elevator service center and ask them to send someone to fix it. Warn the visitors about it. Change the system. Lateral thinking applied, a consultant advised the hotel to fix mirrors next to the elevators. This would cause people to be busy looking at themselves in the mirror and adjusting their dress, hair and may be watching someone else on the sly... They would not feel the wait. This actually worked for the hotel. And they did not receive complaints anymore!!
Please white text your answers!
There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Every day he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half of the distance up riding in the elevator and has to walk the rest of the way up unless it's raining! How can this be?
The man is very, very short and can only reach halfway up the elevator buttons (assuming the levels of the buttons designating floors increases from bottom to top). However, if it is raining then he will have his umbrella with him and can press the higher buttons using it. Alternatively, the man's daily job finishes in this very building halfway up, except when it's raining. Perhaps he's a security guard who makes rounds floor by floor in the morning and watches a security monitor in the afternoon, except when it's raining. It never said he takes the elevator before walking, just that he does both.
Mel Colly stared through the dirty soot-smeared window on the 26th floor of the office tower. Overcome with depression he slid the window open and jumped through it. After he landed he was completely unhurt. Since there was nothing to cushion his fall or slow his descent, how could he have survived?
Mel Colly was so sick and tired of window washing, he opened the window and jumped inside. Alternatively, Mel's office was in another building, on the first floor, and he was looking at the 26th-floor window of another tower; "the window" in the second sentence then refers to that of Mel's office, not the 26th-floor one. Mel could also have had a balcony.
There was a hotel where the visitors complained about the slow moving elevator and how long they had to wait for it to come. It became so severe that the manager was asked to do something about it. If you were the manager what would you suggest?
Most of us would come up with ideal answers like - call the elevator service center and ask them to send someone to fix it. Warn the visitors about it. Change the system. Lateral thinking applied, a consultant advised the hotel to fix mirrors next to the elevators. This would cause people to be busy looking at themselves in the mirror and adjusting their dress, hair and may be watching someone else on the sly... They would not feel the wait. This actually worked for the hotel. And they did not receive complaints anymore!!