The article reminds me of Van Halen's M&M contract rider, though the Orange Juice Test in somewhat more fickle and hostile. From Wikipedia: > The band's deman

The article reminds me of Van Halen's M&M contract rider, though the Orange Juice Test in somewhat more fickle and hostile. From Wikipedia: > The band's demands were not limited to technical issues; their now-infamous rider specified that a bowl of M&M's, with all of the brown M&M's removed, was to be placed in their dressing room. According to David Lee Roth, this was listed in the technical portion of the contract not because the band wanted to make capricious demands of the venue, but rather as a test of whether or not the contract had actually been thoroughly read and honored, as it contained other requirements involving legitimate safety concerns. If the bowl was present, then the band members could safely assume the other, legitimate, items in the technical rider were being fulfilled to their satisfaction. Conversely, if the bowl was missing, or brown M&M's were present, then the band members would be within their rights to have the venue inspect the work, ask that it be redone, etc. Their concern for safety was real: during their earlier tours, not only had equipment been damaged, but several members of their road crew were nearly electrocuted, both due to inadequate safety measures and preparation on the part of the local venue. [1] The big difference here is that the band were using the rider as a canary-in-a-coal-mine for real safety concerns and to see if the venue staff had read the fine print. The Orange Juice test serves a similar purpose, but it is more like many of the obnoxious 'gotcha' tech interview questions in which the interviewer has a you've-heard-this-one-before-or-you-haven't trick answer (that the interviewer almost definitely read somewhere and didn't figure out). Different people (and especially different cultures, even within a country) do business in different ways. Expecting the contractor to act in a way you personally expect a good contractor would act isn't a reliable way to identify good contractors. It might be a good way to avoid false positives... But it probably creates lots of false negatives, which is wasteful and expensive in its own way over time. I don't know if there's a better metric or test, but there's got to be a better one than early morning orange juice.... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen#Contract_riders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen#Contract_riders