Posted on 06/06/2024 8:51:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Although Thomas Edison was awarded 2,332 worldwide patents as an inventor, one of his lasting contributions to modern society was not proprietary: the job interview. Edison was not just a prolific inventor — he was also a businessman in charge of an industrial empire. His corporation, Thomas A. Edison, Inc., employed more than 10,000 workers at dozens of companies. Edison wanted employees who could memorize large quantities of information and also make efficient business decisions. To find them, he devised an extensive questionnaire to assess job candidates’ knowledge and personality.
Edison began using tests for candidate assessment in the late 19th century, but the questions he asked then were very specific to open positions he needed filled. Over time, he expanded on the idea, including questions that were not directly related to the job. While interviewing research assistants, for example, Edison served them soup to see if interviewees would season the soup before they tasted it; those who did were automatically disqualified as it suggested they were prone to operate on assumptions.
In 1921, Edison debuted the Edison Test, a knowledge test with more than 140 questions. Questions varied depending on the job position, but all interviewees were asked about information outside of their areas of expertise. The queries ranged from agricultural in nature (“Where do we get prunes from?”) to commercial (“In what cities are hats and shoes made?”) to the macabre (“Name three powerful poisons”).
After a copy of the questionnaire was leaked to The New York Times, Edison had to change the question bank multiple times to ensure applicants took the exam without any outside assistance.A score of 90% was required to pass, and out of the 718 people who had taken the test as of October 1921, only 32 (just 2%!) succeeded. The test was difficult, to say the least.
Edison’s own son Theodore failed it while a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). More famously, Albert Einstein failed the exam because he forgot the speed of sound.
The 1920s saw an upswing in college-educated people in the workforce, leading to increased competition for skilled labor, and thus more applicants for employers to choose from. Edison’s strategy of questioning candidates to assess their personality and aptitude was innovative at the time, and is still standard practice today — though employers are more likely to ask about someone’s greatest accomplishment than the origins of prunes.
That’s the problem. Because he didn’t care what their ideas about seasoning were he jumped to his own assumption. A very dumb assumption. He refused to wrap his head around the idea that people can know something about how the soup tasted without actually tasting it. And in so doing found more oafs. By not realizing that a person can look at a bowl of soup, see what kind of soup it is, know how that kind of soup is usually prepared, see that the ingredients in the bowl are within the usual method, smell that the soup doesn’t vary from the usual method, know their own taste, and be able to come to a perfectly logical conclusion that they’d like it more with a bit of salt or pepper he was the oaf.
This becomes even more obvious if you know anything about Edison and his penchant for taking credit (and profit) for other people’s inventions. His abuse of employees. His fondness for suing companies that chose to by competing products.
The fact is when he was looking for employees he was looking for people that would put up with his #$%^ and let him steal their inventions without complaint. He wanted compliance, not people who could think for themselves. And that’s what this “question” was all about.
LOL, people didn’t know anything about the soup and what in the world is “their ideas about seasonings” in already prepared food that they haven’t tasted yet?
Its also amusing that you can tell how much salt is in food from looking at it.
You are exactly the kind of person that should never have even applied for that work.
Of course they did. Don’t be silly. Again they had eyes they could see. They had noses they could smell. They prior life experiences.
Are you really trying to insist that if I a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front you you would not be able to tell that it was chicken noodle soup? That you would not have an expectation of what chicken noodle soup usually tastes like? That you would not be able to smell it and get an idea from that how it tastes?
I don’t need to tell how much salt is in the food by how it tastes. I know what effect salt has on the taste of food. And how that effects the smell of food. And lets keep in mind here the human sense of taste is actually our sense of smell, our taste buds aren’t actually that good, our nose actually tells them a lot. So if the flavors SMELL under saturated, which might be from not enough salt, or just not having been cooked long enough, I can pre-emptively add salt.
You actually got 1 thing right. I would never work for a guy that thought sending people to break the projectors of theaters using the competing product was a good idea. Edison was a thug.
32/718 is not 2%, it is 4%.
Crazy stuff, and I didn’t say you wouldn’t work for him, I said you should not even apply for that kind of work.
And again you’re right. He was a known thug even then. I wouldn’t work for a known thug.
Meanwhile I notice you ran away in terror from the chicken noodle soup question. Because it shows I’m right.
The chicken soup question? being able to look at it and guess it was chicken soup?
You are getting too weird and don’t really even understand what we are talking about, or trying to.
Nothing weird about it. It just proves you wrong.
Could you tell a bowl of chicken noodle soup was chicken noodle soup just by looking at it?
It’s a simple question. Answer it.
The question is how do you know if it needs salt, has too much salt, or has just the amount of salt that you think is perfect, by looking at it?
And the answer STARTS with can you see what kind of soup it is?
ANSWER THE QUESTION:
If I put a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of you could you tell that’s chicken noodle soup?
LOL, no, the seasoning is the question, not recognizing whether the soup was minestrone or chicken noodle, or tomato.
And you flee in terror AGAIN.
And of course we both know WHY you are afraid of the question.
Because once you see what kind of soup it is you have an idea of what it tastes like. And you know historically how you like it. And if you always add salt and pepper to that kind of soup it 100% valid to not even taste it first.
So we see that indeed it actually perfectly reasonable to season something before tasting it. And only a jerk looking for yes men would think otherwise.
You are nutty as a fruitcake, as weird a person as I have ever run into here.
No. I’m right. And you know it. Which is why you’ve resorted to insults and refuse to answer the simple question.
I know what chicken noodle soup looks like, and what it tastes like. I know it tends to be a little bland (why it’s used as medicinal food, sits well on a bad stomach) and nobody who isn’t sick eats it without adding spices. So I’d add spices without tasting it.
You listed minestrone. I know what minestrone looks like, and I know what it tastes like. I wouldn’t add spices, minestrone has an excellent flavor profile.
You listed tomato soup. Again I know what tomato soup looks like, and I know what it tastes like. And I know that anybody that serves tomato without a grilled cheese sandwich on the side is evil.
That is the reality. Edison was wrong. You are wrong. And you know you’re wrong. That’s why you’ve gone 100% personal attacks, the dodge of wrong people who can’t admit it.
Anyway, it’s been fun, got things to do. Have the last word. And go ahead and spice something you recognize before tasting it. Live a little. You won’t be so crabby.
ROTFL, this is hilarious.
The only problem with doing nothing is that you never know when you are done.
Love how sooner or later FR will spawn a ‘great’ debate - I agree with the arguments from both sides but I do usually start seasoning my soup asap.
Sounds more like Edison for all his patents helped lead HR & Karens everywhere into political correctness. But I do find most freeper debates entertaining and informative.
Edison was weeding out people who didn’t automatically assume he had the voice of God.Yep. He was looking for followers.
“My answer “When I decide the target needs a hole in it.”
One decides the target needs a hole in it before pointing at it.
“First off thinking someone you gave soup to should just accept it without change is the very type of thing a toxic boss would do.”
Where did you get that dumb idea?
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