the latest question from “answers to technical interview questions” (which i think is really badly named as many, but not all, of these puzzles would make really bad interview questions) concerns 100 people with 100 tickets for the 100 seats on a plane.

unfortunately, the first person in line is crazy, and will ignore the seat number on their ticket, picking a random seat to occupy. all of the other passengers are quite normal, and will go to their proper seat unless it is already occupied. if it is occupied, they will then find a free seat to sit in, at random. the idea is to suss out how likely it is that the last person to board the plane gets their correct seat but from my experience on planes i think the answer should be that that crazy guy who can’t read seat numbers is always in my seat and that i’m always last to board the plane no matter whether i was the first to arrive at the departure lounge or where my seat is.

this is also true for train reservations and probably any other form of reserved seat transportation. either i’m terribly unlucky or i’m the only person in the world who can read both numbers on tickets and numbers on seats and who says “no it’s ok pushy person, i don’t mind either having my toes trampled or that i’ve been here since dawn and you’ve just breezed in, of course you can go first”.