Missing Letters
One Sunday a pastor found several letters awaiting him. He opened one and found it contained the single word, “Fool.”
Quietly and with becoming seriousness he shared the letter with the congregation and announced, “I have known many an instance of a person writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is the only instance I have ever known of someone signing his name and forgetting to write the letter.”
It’s wise to remember how easily this wonderful technology can be misused, sometimes unintentionally, with serious consequences.
Consider the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel, he decided to send his wife a quick e-mail. Unable to find the scrap of paper on which he had written her e-mail address, he did his best to type it in from memory.
Unfortunately, he missed one letter, and his note was directed instead to an elderly woman, whose husband had passed away only the day before. When the grieving widow checked here e-mail, she took one look at the monitor, let out a piercing scream, and fell to the floor in a d e * d faint.
At the sound, her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:
Dearest wife,
Just got checked in. Everything prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
PS: Sure is hot down here.
A new manager spends a week at his new office with the manager he is replacing.
On the last day the departing manager tells him, “I have left three numbered envelopes in the desk drawer. Open an envelope if you encounter a crisis you can’t solve.”
Three months down the track there is major drama, everything goes wrong – the usual stuff – and the manager feels very threatened by it all.
He remembers the parting words of his predecessor and opens the first envelope. The message inside says “Blame your predecessor!”
He does this and gets off the hook.
About half a year later, the company is experiencing a dip in sales, combined with serious product problems.
The manager quickly opens the second envelope. The message read, “Reorganize!”
This he does, and the company quickly rebounds.
Three months later, at his next crisis, he opens the third envelope.
The message inside says “Prepare three envelopes…”
