Silly Anecdote #2: Trilogy, Inc.

I went to Rice for five years, and I went to its Pub only once. The one time I went, it was closed.

I sat at a table with five guys and one woman. There were flat cardboard squares that served as plates for flat, cardboard-like pizza. I scarfed it down. It was college -- free food was good food.

The five guys, plus me, were graduating computer science majors at Rice. The woman -- tall, slender, and slightly older than us -- was a recruiter for the Human Resources department of Trilogy. She was excitedly giving us The Speech.

"Now, what we're into, here at Trilogy, is, well, what we call our 'star performers.'" The words came out in flurries, as if she was doing ten things at once. "And lemme tell you, if you come up with something, something that makes money for the company, then nothing is too good for you, y'know, bonuses... one guy got a car. So, sure, you're working these eighteen-hour days, but you're going for that prize!"

(I had a puzzled look on my face. Later I'd ask one of the guys: "There was a 'teen' on the end of that, right?")

"So I'm here to tell you at the outset: it's all about what you can do to impress us."

Daniel had a look on his face that he put into words for me later. (Daniel, at least back then, spoke in a flat, ironic monotone. One can simulate this in prose thus: "hi my name is daniel".)

"trilogy you called me" he said, and shrugged. "impress me".

This was an information session before we went on a plant trip -- a chance to visit Trilogy's world headquarters, meet with their brilliant engineers, and have our crack at making it past their intense winnowing of candidates.

"Free trip to Austin," I had said.

"yeah".

Headquarters was a warren of miniscule offices, each one crammed with books, and scrap paper, and its own distinctive Dilbert-brand decorative item. Occasionally, an office would stand out somehow:

"Um. Is that a cot?"

"Heh, heh. Been workin' some late hours."

But the moment of truth was my interview with Alan, one of Trilogy's "star performers," a "really amazing" Rice grad who (the recruiter had said with awe) "only works eight hours a day!"

And so I found myself seated across from somebody taller than me, thinner than me, and paler than me.

It took me a second to get over the 'ack' feeling of being face to face with my own distorted self-image.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Fine," I said.

"Okay, so: you have a room. In the room are three light bulbs. They are connected to three switches outside the room. You can flip the switches, then go into the room, only once. How do you determine which switch goes to which bulb?"

I affected a pensive moment.

"Is there some sort of... open doorway next to the switches?" I asked.

A pained chuckle. "No."

"Okay. Well if you turn one on, then go in, you know that the flipped switch goes to the lit bulb."

"Yes, but the other two..." he responded, smiling.

"Yeah, you can't distinguish them," I said, concerned.

I shrugged.

He kept sitting there, waiting.

"I dunno," I said.

Alan didn't respond. He was still quietly smiling.

I looked off vaguely, seeking the answer in the third acoustic ceiling tile to the right of Alan's head. Noooo idea.

No response.

A minute went by.

Still quietly smiling.

I started softly whistling "The Girl from Ipanema."

"A light bulb also generates heat..." he said, slowly, the smile growing a tiny fraction.

"Oh jeez." Spoken as if I'd just stepped in a dog turd. In sandals.

"You've got it?"

I sulked. "Then it's just... pathetically simple," I said, sneering.

"Well?"

I sighed in classic teenager-in-a-huff fashion.

"Throw one switch. Wait five minutes. Throw it back. Throw another switch. Enter the room. Determine which is on, which is off, and which is hot." I rattle off the words, anxious to get my embarrassing show of stupidity over with.

"Good," said Alan, who smilingly pencilled a mark on his form.

Later, their 'star performer' would get his turn at Daniel.

"Now, this is a question I haven't asked before. It's from a computer game. You have two knights, and the objective is to get this one from here to here in three moves. Is it possible?"

"yes"

"Now, why is that?"

"zork 2 is winnable"

"Well, yes chuckle? that's true, but why logically?"

"because if you couldnt solve the puzzle you couldnt win zork 2"

Apparently this isn't what Alan had had in mind.

We all compared notes at lunch.

"Jesse had something about monks. One of them is marked with something, and there aren't any mirrors, and all the monks are perfectly logical. I dunno, I just remember that in 'n' days they all commit suicide," said one Rice candidate.

"I got the one with the thief," I said.

"the thief"

"There's a golden rope attached to the ceiling, and there's a thief, and the thief has a knife and has to get as much of the rope as possible."

"oh"

"I said the thief should climb the rope, cut it at the top, and fall to his death."

"the thief cant die"

"Oh but say the thief could be... persuaded to do this for you."

"say the thief had a mother say something were to happen to that mother"

"They didn't go for that," I said.

It went on like that. Seven hours of it, actually. We were told it was grueling because of the tremendous mental challenge.

Instead, I felt depressed. Here were all these people going to all this effort to give you a glorified IQ test. Your skill at answering the questions was the only factor at play. No concern for who you were. "Hell," I thought, "you could be a real asshole and get in here just fine." And then it occurred to me that you might fit in there just fine, too.

I should have taken it as a warning as to what working in this field is like -- the kind of personalities you can end up with in a 'meritocracy.' The guys at the Pub that night were talented, and easy to get along with, and had all sorts of outside interests, and I never suspected it was, for my field, the exception. The people asking seven hours of rehashed Henry Ernest Dudeney puzzles were the norm.

Daniel got an offer, rejected it, and went to do high-energy particle research at CERN.

I got an offer. I took a cozy job in Boston programming museum exhibits instead.

Trilogy even sent a care package -- a Trilogy mug, some chocolate, and (of course) a puzzle -- one of those interlocked metalworked contraptions that you can unravel into its component parts if you move things around right and have a head for high-order knot theory. I became possessed with trying to solve it. An hour later, I pried it apart with pliers and ate all the chocolate.

My last communication with them was an email, to the attractive woman who'd talked to us in the Pub.

Dear Trilogy --

Have received your care package. Unfortunately, have run out of chocolate. Please rectify this situation with a fresh supply as soon as possible.

peter

Never did hear back from them.

Footnotes