Behind the Fairness

The largest advertising company in the city is hiring a graphic designer. After a series of rigorous assessments, only two candidates remain: one is Li Mingming, a graduate from a prestigious university, and the other is Zhao Xiaotong, a "sea turtle" (a person who has studied abroad).

Li Mingming initially felt confident about getting the job, but he unexpectedly discovered that Zhao Xiaotong was the daughter of one of the company's vice presidents! Li Mingming realized that his chances were slim, as the company's assessments seemed to be just a formality. However, he was not willing to give up and decided to make a final effort.

The next round of assessments began. The examiner showed Li Mingming and Zhao Xiaotong a picture and said with a smile, "Today's task is simple: reproduce this picture on the computer. I know it's easy for both of you, but as you know, competition among companies is fierce. The key to winning is creativity and efficiency! The rule for this exam is: whoever completes the picture reproduction in the shortest time gets the position."

Li Mingming knew that even non-professionals with basic knowledge of image software could accomplish this task. He thought he could finish it in three minutes and felt a bit smug: even if Zhao Xiaotong was the company's predetermined choice, if he beat her, it would be interesting to see how the company would handle it.

The examiner led Li Mingming and Zhao Xiaotong to a small office with two computers. Li Mingming was assigned to the left, and Zhao Xiaotong sat on the right. As soon as the examiner said "start," Li Mingming quickly turned on his computer, but to his surprise, it was as slow as a snail. After half a minute, it still hadn't started, and he had to wait. Meanwhile, Zhao Xiaotong had already begun working on her computer! Li Mingming finally understood where the trick was.

When Li Mingming's computer finally started, two minutes had already passed. He knew this delay was fatal, and if nothing unexpected happened, Zhao Xiaotong would definitely finish the task before him. Li Mingming quickly checked his computer's configuration and saw that it was outdated, no wonder it started so slowly! He felt extremely unbalanced, but since things had already gone this way, he had to continue.

Li Mingming opened the image processing software and divided the picture, but he accidentally clicked the wrong spot and had to start over. After several attempts, he made more mistakes due to his frustration, and he had to start over again and again. Soon, another six minutes passed, and Zhao Xiaotong had already completed the picture, while Li Mingming hadn't even finished half of it.

The examiner announced with a smile, "The winner this time is Zhao Xiaotong!" Li Mingming could no longer contain himself and shouted, "Enough! Stop pretending, giving people a hard time behind the scenes. I don't accept this unfair competition!" The examiner asked with a smile, "Oh? How is it unfair? It was indeed Zhao Xiaotong who finished first!"

Li Mingming stormed over to Zhao Xiaotong's computer and pulled up its configuration for the examiner to see: "See? Her computer has a Pentium 2.8 processor, while mine has a Celeron 1.6; her computer has 512MB of memory, while mine has only 128MB! Her computer starts up in less than half a minute, while mine took a full two minutes! You tell me, is this competition fair?"

The examiner nodded and said, "It is a bit unfair, but this time, the competition was unfair to Zhao Xiaotong!" Li Mingming was furious and exclaimed, "What? Her computer configuration is better than mine, and you still say it's unfair to her? Do you even make sense?"

The examiner said with a smile, "Young man, don't be impatient. We recorded the entire process of you both working on the task. Let me show you Zhao Xiaotong's recording!" As he spoke, the examiner played the recording. Li Mingming saw that Zhao Xiaotong took half a minute to start her computer, but she hesitated for a moment because her computer didn't have any image processing software! However, after composing herself, she quickly opened a web page to search for image processing software, downloaded it to her computer, and installed it... Li Mingming checked the time and realized it had taken Zhao Xiaotong five minutes! That is to say, for the first five minutes, Zhao Xiaotong couldn't even start working on the picture!

Li Mingming couldn't believe his eyes. The examiner patted the stunned Li Mingming and said, "See? What was Zhao Xiaotong doing in the first five minutes? And you? Although your computer started slowly, it had the image processing software ready! But because you were unbalanced mentally, you made mistakes in your operations, wasting time..."

The examiner paused and sighed, "Zhao Xiaotong is indeed the daughter of our vice president, but she also has to compete for her position. In fact, this time, I mainly wanted to test your psychological quality and your ability to adapt to unexpected situations. I didn't expect you to be so fragile!" Li Mingming knew he had indeed lost this time!