Critical thinking skills and applications

secretary went on vacation. She inadvertently took with her something from the office. Her boss sent her a message asking her to return it immediately. This she did, mailing it out that day. Yet, when she returned from vacation, she was dismissed. Why?

The object the secretary took was the set of keys for the mailbox. Since the keys were in the mailbox, her boss could not open the mailbox to retrieve them and this explains her dismissal.

The strategy used was first to determine exactly what needed to be known. The question was 'why was the secretary dismissed?'

The next step was to look at what is known. The facts are:

The secretary inadvertently took something home from the office.

Her bossed asked her to return it.

She returned it by mail.

She was dismissed when she returned from her vacation.

It was assumed that all this information given would be necessary to the solution. The next step was to consider this information and what it tells us about the situation. The fact that the boss asked the secretary to return it suggests that it is not the fact that she took the object that is the reason for her dismissal. Therefore, it was decided that the fact that she mailed it back must have been relevant.

Brainstorming was then used to think of why mailing an object would be a reason to dismiss her. Some of the ideas thought of include that the mailing stamp would give the area the secretary was in and the boss could see from this that she was not really on vacation. This idea was rejected because it did not fit with the rest of the facts of the case. If the secretary had claimed to be out of town for a funeral, this solution may have been plausible. Another idea was that she may have posted something confidential that was not meant to be posted. This solution was also rejected because it did not fit the rest of the information.