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A classic:

A CEO of a multi-million dollar business has to go on a business trip to Belgium (from somewhere in America). Before going to the airport in the morning with his limousine, he's going to the office first to get some files that he forgot the previous night.

When arriving at the office, the night guard opens the gate & door for him. The CEO gets the files and drinks a coffee while chatting a bit with the guard, and he mentions that he's flying to Belgium today for a deal he cannot miss, it would bring millions of dollars to the business.

The night guard looks shocked, and explains why.

Guard: I just had a dream this night. A plane that would fly to Belgium is going to crash in the middle of the Ocean.

The night guard begs his CEO not to go on this business trip. And the CEO believes him. He doesn't go to the airport and cancels his flight. Later that day, on the news, an air-plane crash... It was the plane that flew to Belgium. It crashed in the middle of the ocean.

The CEO thanks the night guard later and gives him $10.000.
The CEO also tells the night guard that he's fired.

Question: Why did the CEO fire the night guard after he saved his life?

Found it in a book: Raadseltjes, thought I'll share it with you :)

Dan Russell
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Decypher
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  • I found a similar post somewhere else : https://riddlesbrainteasers.com/thanks-youre-fired/ .... :/ – manshu May 03 '16 at 09:24
  • @manshu Did not get it from there... read it in a dutch book thought it was fun to post it here also, In the book it was 5000€ :) so thought I changed some things but happened to change it to something already existed :( – Decypher May 03 '16 at 09:27
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    As the question is answered now, I think you should add the name of the book and the writer somewhere in the puzzle for attribution according to our policy of plagiarism. Same goes for your other puzzle if that too is from any book. – manshu May 03 '16 at 09:30
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    This story is part of "Vikram and Betaal stories". Indian kids grew up listening to this story for 100s of years. http://shortstories.co.in/reward-for-gatekeeper/ – Amit G May 03 '16 at 12:16
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    What about day dreaming? You can dream, still be awake, and would you then still be fired? – Klyzx May 03 '16 at 16:16
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    This is an old story. Just that in the version I read, the chowkidaar is the CEO's childhood friend. – cst1992 May 04 '16 at 12:10
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    @CaelanO'Toole Ooh. Bad spoiler. – Oliphaunt May 04 '16 at 13:41
  • This riddle is *old* — I remember seeing it over 40 years ago. – Peregrine Rook May 05 '16 at 17:40
  • no mystery here. i would do the same thing. basically, this guy just proved he was involved in orchestrating a plane crash. so i reward him with 10k$ for saving my life, but i don't really trust him anymore to guard my business. – teldon james turner May 05 '16 at 17:51
  • I like how the CEO let the plane crash just to test if the guard was correct. – rgajrawala May 06 '16 at 18:33

10 Answers10

126

The guard is fired because:

He had the dream this night, which means that he was sleeping during his shift

Wu33o
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    I myself have stood/walked guard shifts... starting some time during the night... being woken before. The riddle makes the unspoken (and therefore uncertain) assumption that all night shifts start before the night commences. – MichaelK May 03 '16 at 10:31
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    Also he could have had dual shifts with time for a nap in between. Isn't there something like a lunch break for people on night shifts? Can't possibly be expected to work hungry all night. – mathreadler May 03 '16 at 11:43
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    The guard never said that he was sleeping and you don't need to sleep to have a dream (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daydream). Thus the answer is clever but flawed. – Adnan Y May 03 '16 at 18:07
  • If you have a daydream at night, is it still a daydream? :p – Wu33o May 03 '16 at 18:09
  • @MichaelKarnerfors, no, it makes only the unspoken assumption that this night shift began before the night commenced. – msh210 May 03 '16 at 22:08
  • @msh210 In any case: this is an assumption, it is not corroborated by the text. – MichaelK May 03 '16 at 22:09
  • @MichaelKarnerfors The guard said he "just" had a dream. Perhaps the guard should have clarified that it was before his shift, not during, if he wanted to keep his job. I would say that the CEO makes the assumption that the guard slept during his shift, not the riddle. We are asked for the CEO's justification for firing him. We are not asked to determine whether he was justified. – Buttle Butkus May 04 '16 at 04:20
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    While the night guard wasn't doing his job, he was arguably doing a much more important job. It'd be like firing your window washer because he was fixing your broken mainframe over the weekend instead of cleaning windows. – Fax May 04 '16 at 07:47
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    @Fax if my window washer fixed my broken mainframe, I might fire him from the window washing but give him a new contract in IT. In this case, I might fire the guard as a guard and give him a contract as an investment banker, but only if it turns out that he can consistently perform clairvoyance in his sleep. – rumtscho May 04 '16 at 11:03
  • This is certainly the canon answer I've heard before but, on this site, people get creative. – Engineer Toast May 04 '16 at 19:57
  • On this site, people are not satisfied with answers that pull additional facts out of their... imagination. May as well answer "'the guard slept with the CEO's wife" and feel equally smug. Canon does not mean correct, I prefer kasperd's answer myself. – kaay May 05 '16 at 09:34
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    This is almost certainly the intended correct answer — it fits with the general structure of this type of puzzle. But I love all of the other answers giving other plausible reasons. Sometimes it's good to think outside of "outside of the box". – mattdm May 05 '16 at 12:25
  • Seems a bit harsh, you'd think after saving his life the CEO might let him off with a warning... – komodosp May 06 '16 at 10:56
55

I am thinking the guard was fired because

the company has gone bankrupt.

Remember the CEO spoke about

a deal he cannot miss.

If this was not an exaggeration on the CEOs part, it may be so important for the company that with the CEO absent from the meeting in Belgium the company is now forced to

file for bankruptcy.

kasperd
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    I'd call that being "laid off" or "let go" though, not "fired". – Captain Man May 04 '16 at 15:06
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    So would I, but my ethics teacher didn't. – Joshua May 04 '16 at 16:40
  • This doesn't fit with the $10K bonus. – Peregrine Rook May 05 '16 at 06:51
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    @PeregrineRook It doesn't say anywhere that the money was a bonus. Neither is it said that it was paid from the company's money. It only says the CEO gave the money to the guard. If anything - that wording would imply the CEO paid it from his own money. – kasperd May 05 '16 at 07:58
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    @PeregrineRook If a company fires an employee without notification period, it has to pay them some money for compensation. The sum of $10000 could be this compensation. – JRr May 05 '16 at 10:32
20

The guard is fired because:

He opened the door for the CEO but didn't check the CEO's identity documents before opening a door and a gate and giving access to confidential documents.

diwhyyyyy
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    Everyone knows the CEO's face. So unless the CEO was John Travolta, in which case you never know if Nicholas Cage will walk in disguised as him, there's no problem – Buttle Butkus May 04 '16 at 04:22
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    Unless the CEO had an identical twin who the guard was warned not to trust, so the CEO's face was insufficient identity. – Oddthinking May 04 '16 at 13:28
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    In a multi-million company, would you always know the CEO? Unless it's a company with a well-known CEO like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, that is. I for one don't know what the CEO of Adobe looks like, even if I took a job as security guard at Adobe. – diwhyyyyy May 04 '16 at 15:23
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    @Inductiveload: On the one hand, if you were an employee of Adobe or any other company, you would probably know what the CEO looked like, because his/her photo would probably be plastered all over internal company communications (policy documents, motivational e-mails, etc.)  On the other hand, they would probably use the same photograph everywhere, and positively identifying somebody on the basis of a single image is risky.  Also, security guards are often not employees of the company, but are contractors, and might not be included in such communications.  … (Cont’d) – Peregrine Rook May 05 '16 at 17:22
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    (Cont’d) …  On the third (?) hand, if you’re a security guard in the building where the CEO works, you’re somewhat likely to have seen him in person — especially if he’s the sort of person who is inclined to chat with a guard over coffee. – Peregrine Rook May 05 '16 at 17:22
13

Because

The plane crash was due to the pilot having a heart attack. The CEO knew how to fly a plane, meaning that the plane crash wouldn't have occurred if he had been on the flight. He thanks the guard for the warning, but fires him because he thinks the visions bring about themselves.

Or optionally

The CEO was flying in a private jet and would have avoided the crash, completely. Therefore, the CEO got in trouble with the board and had to "fire" the person who cost the company the money. He sneaks the guard some money so he isn't complete damaged by the loss of his job.

user64742
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8

The guard is a terrorist and knew that the plane was to "crash".

Trang Oul
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user847765
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    Then why pay him? – Stig Hemmer May 03 '16 at 09:54
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    Maybe the CEO is the brain of the operation but doesn't tell the guard from before? :) – Decypher May 03 '16 at 10:54
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    @Decypher Then why would the CEO even have been getting on the plane? He would've known. – Captain Man May 04 '16 at 15:07
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    It works. The guard was rewarded for warning the boss and save his life. But he was fired because the hypotheses that he knew it from some terrorist relation is more likely that the sheer coincidence of a dream. So it is a "thank you very much but you just lost your security clearance". – Florian F May 04 '16 at 20:55
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    This was my first thought. – Dessa Simpson May 05 '16 at 01:04
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    @StigHemmer e.g. so that he won't kill you next time he does a suicide job like his friends? You don't want to work with a terrorist, but I assume you certainly want the terrorist to be on your side. –  May 05 '16 at 12:47
8

Lots of unanswered questions

1. Why was the CEO so friendly with a night guard so as to share with him with a deal that he would not like to miss. These are supposed to be confidential
2. The night guard was a bit affectionate with his boss who is too concerned about him. Dreaming about someone and believing on ones dream and begging to dissuade him to drop his plan is more than a service.
3. The CEO definitely trusts his night guard a lot. Someone who drops a deal that he was vouching on for just a dream of a night guard shows a lot of trust and feelings involved.
4. Nevertheless, the night guard is a male
So CEO was a gay, in love with the night-guard, gifts him $ 10,000 fires him to marry him eventually.

Abhijit
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  • Haven't you heard this story? In the story the guard was a childhood friend of the CEO. That detail has been skipped here. – cst1992 May 04 '16 at 12:12
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    @cst1992: Actually No. And anything skipped should be out of context, right? – Abhijit May 04 '16 at 12:22
  • This story is so well known, as @cst1992 mentioned, that these details would be out of context only in the way that a puzzle about Einstein could be answered "Well, we don't know he's a physicist or that he's generally recognized as intelligent." This is just such a common children's story, the "Gaurd and the CEO" story, that some details were left out because, why not? – SendersReagent May 05 '16 at 07:29
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    @SendersReagent: Define well known. I have never heard about the story nor I read it when I was a child. So, if it still qualifies as well known, then I rest my case. – Abhijit May 05 '16 at 19:47
  • @Abhijit Iz joke. – SendersReagent May 06 '16 at 22:37
2

Because

the guard is sleeping at night and not doing his duty.

cst1992
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aliasgar456
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Edit since I should have learned about the no-spoiler thing on puzzling. If the boss and any higher-ups were in fact pleased with the guards performance they may have acted in this way because:

The guard proved more useful somewhere else and interpreting the warning as sleeping on the shift would provide a good excuse to do so. Giving the correct reason (he did an incredible job) for the firing would likely boost his ego too much to be practical to work with (in the future).

mathreadler
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0

Because

The guard was a part of a terrorist group that wanted to crash the plane, but as the guard got to know the CEO, he/she began to like the CEO a lot and wanted to save him/her from the crash. Therefore, the guard covered up his/her knowledge of the plane crash that was about to happen by coming up with the fake story of "seeing it in his/her dreams" so that he/she would not get his/her secret identity as a terrorist discovered. After seeing that the plane did, in fact crash, the CEO somehow discovered that the guard was a terrorist, and the CEO felt obliged to thank the terrorist for saving the CEO's life, but had to get rid of the terrorist because he/she was a terrorist.

Beastly Gerbil
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Carlo
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The night guard was fired because he had known about something that could not be known by a human. Therefore, since he had inhuman powers, he was either an alien, or some Satan spawn, depending on religion and/or beliefs of the manager. (I'm basing this on the fact that someone with any sort of telepathy or other odd power is frowned upon by Mennonites, at least that I know of. This is NOT a belief-hating comment, just saying. Just saying.)

Yeniaul Adrianad
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