Well that is the point of solving a CS problem right? Figuring out how to get to the desired result by using some sort of data already provided to you. Cheers!

I think there needs to be a summary sentence in the example paragraph. The total wait time is 26 minutes becuase customer1(4 minutes), customer2(9 minutes), and customer3(13 minutes). It took me a while to figure out how to the total was 26 minutes.

Given a number, find the permutation with the smallest absolute value (no leading zeros).

What was the input value? It seems your number has indeed leading zeros.

Feel free to propose a better one, although almost 1000 people solved it.