Out of the Box Problem Solving

There were a couple of lessons this week in how to solve a problem by thinking out of the box.

The first problem belonged to a student at Trinity International University in suburban Chicago. She didn’t like the school, but her parents wanted her to stay there, so she came up with a way to convince her parents to let her leave.

She sent racially threatening letters to a few of her fellow students, which caused a panic on the campus. The school moved all its minority students off campus for a couple of days while this was being investigated. A couple of days later, the woman, Alicia Hardin of Chicago, was arrested and supposedly confessed.

Hardin is black, and the idea was that if her parents felt the school was unsafe, they would let her leave. Well, she’s gone now, and she faces charges of disorderly conduct and hate crimes. The hate crime charges may land her some time in a federal pen.

The second problem belonged to Jennifer Wilbanks of Duluth, GA. Wilbanks was to be married Saturday, but she was starting to get cold feet. Of course, the way most people handle this problem is to discuss her fears with her fiancé and her family and try to work things out, but she didn’t do this.

She ran away and hid. Literally. She went for a jog and disappeared. Naturally, her friends and family panicked, fearing the worst. They, along with police and volunteers, tore up Duluth trying to find her, but could not. A couple of days later, she turned up in Albuquerque, NM and called home. When she called, she made up a story of a kidnapping at the hands of a middle-aged couple driving a blue van, but she later confessed that she made that up and had taken a bus to Las Vegas, and then Albuquerque, where her money ran out.

Prosecutors are now trying to decide whether or not to charge her with, perhaps among other things, filing a false police report. Her fiancé has supposedly forgiven her, but it might be a while before the townfolk in Duluth do.

It's this kind of out of the box problem solving that has made America what it is today - cynical.

Every incident like these makes people want to look the other way the next time something like this happens, except that next time it might be real. You end up with a story like The Boy Who Cried Wolf, except that it's not one person doing all the crying. Because of the selfishness of people like these, every person or organization who really needs help is looked at skeptically instead of lovingly, and we're all hurt by that.