This topic always comes back, and it attracts a bunch of people from one side of the issue who come out of the "would work" (on real problems only, ha ha) to di

This topic always comes back, and it attracts a bunch of people from one side of the issue who come out of the "would work" (on real problems only, ha ha) to disclaim puzzle solving as a measure of anything. I think it's because of the natural human tendency to wish to discount any criticism of one's self, and they perceive this type of aptitude used as a metric to be an implied criticism. Also, it's hard to see what you can't see, so it's hard to see the value of it too for people who can't see it. So, to argue the other side but still make a fresh, pleasing, and palatable comment, I will defend the side that says "puzzle solving is a rare and useful skill" but I will include a criticism of my side so you can all join in and say "see, your side does suck!" and everybody will be happy. I love solving puzzles, real or artificial, I'm really good at it, and there are plenty of real world problems that use the same skills (in my case I'm particularly "spatial", I conceptual the birthday problem as graphs of the attributes of the numbers), and elements of the same graphs occur in hashing algorithms, joins, simplex method, discrete math digital filters, modular arithmetic, sieves... The problem with being me is, I'm so attracted to puzzles, I can get distracted from the task at hand if it does not involve a puzzle. I will insert or find puzzles to solve where perhaps none exist. I will procrastinate a lot of the "uninteresting" (to me) but necessary parts of a project in favor of puzzle solving. Thankfully, projects tend to include a mix of people with different skillsets. But it can be annoying to have one's own skillset discounted as valuable, which is what you do to me when you say "I don't have this tendency and I'm a good worker" and what "they" are doing to you when they say "you don't have this tendency so you don't get the job."