Top 25 interview oddball questions

1. “How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30pm on a Friday?”  Asked at Google
2. “Just entertain me for five minutes, I’m not going to talk.” Asked at Acosta
3. “If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?” Asked at Hewlett-Packard
4. “What do you think of garden gnomes?” Asked at Trader Joe’s
5. “Is your college GPA reflective of your potential?” Asked at the Advisory Board
6. “Would Mahatma Gandhi have made a good software engineer?” Asked at Deloitte
7. “If you could be #1 employee but have all your coworkers dislike you or you could be #15 employee and have all your coworkers like you, which would you choose?” Asked at ADP
8. “How would you cure world hunger?” Asked at Amazon.com
9. “Room, desk and car – which do you clean first?” Asked at Pinkberry
10. “Does life fascinate you?” Asked at Ernst & Young
11. “Given 20 ‘destructible’ light bulbs (which breaks at certain height), and a building with 100 floors, how do you determine the height that the light bulb breaks?” Asked at QUALCOMM
12. Please spell ‘diverticulitis’.” Asked at EMSI Engineering
13. “Name 5 uses of a stapler without staple pins.” Asked at EvaluServe
14. “How much money did residents of Dallas/Ft. Worth spend on gasoline in 2008?”Asked at American Airlines
15. “How would you get an elephant into a refrigerator?”Asked at Horizon Group Properties. 
16. “You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?” Asked at Epic Systems
17. “How many planes are currently flying over Kansas?” Asked at Best Buy
18. “How many different ways can you get water from a lake at the foot of a mountain, up to the top of the mountain?” Asked at Disney Parks & Resorts
19. “What is 37 times 37?” Asked at Jane Street Capital
20. “If you could be a superhero, what power would you possess?” Asked at Rain and Hail Insurance
21. “If you were a Microsoft Office program, which one would you be?” Asked at Summit Racing Equipment
22. “Pepsi or Coke?” Asked at United Health Group
23. “Are you exhaling warm air?” Asked at Walker Marketing
24. “You’re in a row boat, which is in a large tank filled with water. You have an anchor on board, which you throw overboard (the chain is long enough so the anchor rests completely on the bottom of the tank). Does the water level in the tank rise or fall?” Asked at Tesla Motors
25. “How do you feel about those jokers at Congress?” Asked at Consolidated Electrical

Sample responses:

1. All, only people use Facebook. OR - depends on the year. If it were 2005 or earlier, then none. OR - get into a logical deduction about number of people working in San Fransisco (SFO) and the fact that it is a tech valley, so a higher % of people use facebook in SFO. Also, since it is a Friday afternoon, the percentage is likely to be higher, since people would be planning for the weekend with friends.
2. You can choose not to talk either and play rock-scissor-paper or tic-tac-toe with interviewer
3. Take a random sample of Germans, and another random sample from around the world and try and prove statistically. You may also attempt to define what are "Germans" - people with German passports, or German origins or East Germany or West Germany, etc.
4. Funny response - they are more privileged than I am, because at least they do not need to face an interview with questions such as these!
5. No, it is only reflective of the kind of work that I put in to get my grades. And you can quote other examples from college or outside that reflect your true potential. 
6. Probably a good project manager? Or that for a good software developer, you need good communication, good logic (which Gandhi had since he was a lawyer)
7. Depends on size of company. If at ADP, which is a very large company, then you would rather be #15 and liked by larger team. Once team morale is affected, lots of time is wasted in just managing the friction. 
8. Reduce world population or increase food production or have more efficient systems of distribution. 
9. Depends on what is visible to the customers. If car is used as complimentary transport for customers, then car ... if desk is where customers visit, then desk. 
10. No, a job at E&Y does. OR yes, it does - and then you could describe about various experiences you have everyday to keep you interested in life. OR - life is not eternal, hence it does not fascinate me. Only death does. 
11. Start with throwing a bulb from first floor. If it does not break, then take that same bulb to second floor and so on until it breaks. This way, you will have to use only one light bulb. OR - if bulbs are not reusable, then use mathematical algorithm. 
12. Use spell check
13. Door stop, paper weight, ice scraper, staple remover, to hit someone, as a musical instrument, as collateral to buy staplers
14. More than last year, enough to buy them the gasoline that they needed. OR - go the logical way by estimating how much miles they traveled, fuel efficiency on an average and cost of a gallon of gasoline.
15. Open the refrigerator, put the elephant in, close the door (the elephant may as well be a chocolate elephant or a toy)
16. 3 flowers - 1 of each kind
17. All planes are flying over Kansas (none is flying underground!). Or go the logical way depending on number of airports in Kansas and how long does it take before the flight leaves Kansas airspace. 
18. Since this was asked at Disney, a more appropriate answer could be to either create an illusion of water being transported. OR - water can be transported in solid, liquid or gaseous form - out of which gaseous form is happening day in and day out through evaporation. And there are numerous ways to transport water in solid and liquid form! 
19. Regular arithmetic problem. Can be solved as (40-3) * (40-3)
20. Ability to remove hunger from the world - one possible answer. 
21. Microsoft Office - well organized, smart presentation. Or Excel, because I like to excel!
22. How about some water?
23. They say marketing is a lot of hot air. Anyway, warm or hot is relative to the outside temperature. If you are in Egypt, then the air that you exhale may be considered as cold air!
24. The water level in tank falls. When an object is floating on water, the water displaced is equal to the mass of the object. In this case, anchor is heavy, so the mass is more and more water gets displaced. But when anchor is at the bottom of the tank, water displaced is equal to the volume of the anchor - and volume of anchor is relatively low. So water level will actually fall.
25. I do not discuss politics at work. OR - but the congress does not make me laugh, so I wouldn't call them jokers!