Brain Teasers
Package Problem
Situation
Situation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.Situation
When Brainy sends a package, he uses PackagesR'Us. When somebody uses PackagesR'Us to send packages, they don't have to put a postage stamp, but they have to put money inside the package, 0.05$ per ounce. When PackagesR'Us receives the package, they weigh it and check the money, before sending it to the recipient. Brainy was sending some cookies to his grandmother, and when he weighed it, it was 2 pounds and 3 ounces. Brainy put in 7 quarters inside the package, and sent it to his grandmother. A couple days later, the package came back, saying that he didn't pay enough money. What happened?
Hint
The money was inside the package when PackagesR'Us weighed it...Answer
The quarters added on weight to the package, but Brainy weighed it when there were no quarters inside, while the PackagesR'Us workers weighed it when the quarters were inside the package.Hide Hint Show Hint Hide Answer Show Answer
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Comments
That's a crazy way to do business. You can't determine how much to pay unless you weigh the payment which isn't known when you weigh the package. The company must remove the payment before they send the package in order to bank the payment. Therefore Brainy paid the correct amount. Packages R Us is likely to have no repeat customers.
Exactly. That's why they're not in business anymore. They went bankrupt a long time ago, which is why very few people know about that company.
This totally confused me. Not sure what quarters are either.
I've dealt with some companies whose policies are just as poorly thought out as this, so it's more plausible than you might think.
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