The Letters That Stopped Coming
A man was troubled by the letters of complaint he received every day.
Then, one day, the letters stopped coming.
Far from being pleased, he went to the sender’s house and asked them to write the same complaint to him again.
Why did he ask for another letter of complaint?
Question your assumptions, one by one.
View Hints
Hints
Use as many hints as you need, one at a time.
Hint 1
Just because the letters stopped arriving did not mean the sender had nothing left to complain about.
Hint 2
The person a letter is addressed to and the person it complains about are not necessarily the same.
Hint 3
Someone who handled the letters before they reached the man did not want him to read what they said.
Check the Answer
Answer
The man was the head of the local post office.
A resident had been writing complaints about a postal worker’s work and handing them to that very worker, saying, “Please give this to the head of the post office.”
The head of the post office suspected that the worker was withholding the complaints about themselves.
So he asked the resident to write the same letter again. He wanted to watch it being handed over and check whether it reached him.
Explanation
The head of the post office had previously reprimanded the worker over the complaints he had received. The letters stopped arriving after that.
The sudden silence troubled him. When he visited the resident, they told him, “I still hand over a letter every day.” The worker’s performance had not improved; the worker had simply stopped passing on letters that reflected badly on them.
The resident had put the complaints in letters addressed to the worker’s supervisor so they would go beyond a verbal complaint to the worker themselves. They had not put stamps on the letters and posted them in a letterbox.
The head of the post office decided to watch the handover on the worker’s next delivery round from a place where he would not be noticed. The worker might pass on an ordinary letter. That was precisely why he asked the resident to write the same complaint again.
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