Jake Carpenter

My friend recently told me about this book that he is reading that describes the history of google. He showed me a page of it that had one of the questions they ask when you apply for a job there. The question went something like this:

You are stuck in an endless maze inhabited by garden gnomes, all you have is a laptop with 5 minutes of battery left and the cloths on your back. What do you do?

Here is my response:

Well, first I would try to identify the gnomes using the rest of the battery life on the computer. In my travels i have learned that gnome identification is key. For example, if the gnomes were of tribal decent I would probably stay clear of them considering they have a history of assassinations and deals with the Russian mob. On the other hand, If they were of the ‘Gnome Erotica’ clan, then they would probably be helpful in guiding me out of the maze but then disappointed and bitter when they found out I didn’t want to sleep with them. The best possible gnome I could find would be the famed Travelocity gnome. This would be a rare occasion because these gnomes are often on vacation. Although these gnomes would be instrumental to getting out of the maze for the lowest rates on the internet, the long term effects such as emails for $99 vacations and enlarge your gnome hat pills may be too much to handle. Ultimately if I had no chance of escaping this maze then I would do what any man surrounded by gnomes and tons of time on their hands would do. I would teach the gnomes of a monotheistic religion where I was the son of the god that rules over all gnomes and that I have brought a message of peace and prosperity to the land. Furthermore, I would instate new taxes on the people and slowly peel apart the socioeconomic structure and rearrange the social system to my liking in which the majority of the population would live on government owned land where me and a selection of nobles selected by there hereditary inheritance would sit atop the thrones of the social structure to oppress the lower classes. The gnomes would then revolt against their leader killing everyone in their path demanding equal rights among gnomes. I would then be thrust into shackles and placed under the endearing blade of the guillotine, and in the last moments of my life I would be thinking, “I guess this is it, but at least I did something with my life, instead of wasting my time on the internet updating my blog.”