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People are math challenged
| February 5th, 2010 at 5:25:37 AM permalink | |
| Wizard Administrator Member since: Oct 14, 2009 Threads: 256 Posts: 5769 |
My daughter is taking 7th grade pre-algebra and the school requires it to be done by hand. It's not whether you win or lose; it's whether or not you had a good bet. |
| February 5th, 2010 at 5:31:13 AM permalink | |
| DJTeddyBear Member since: Nov 2, 2009 Threads: 92 Posts: 4928 | Yeah, I know. Actually, I was implying that these are the people that thing double zero is better than wheels with only single zero. It's been mentioned in other threads - just the same way that they think 6:5 is better than 3:2. Thanks. I needed that chuckle. But thanks again for letting me rant / vent. Superstitions are silly, childish, irrational rituals, born out of fear of the unknown.
But how much does it cost to knock on wood? |
| February 5th, 2010 at 5:43:42 AM permalink | |
| boymimbo Member since: Nov 12, 2009 Threads: 11 Posts: 2179 |
Of course it would be impossible, but I doubt I would find you behind a counter at Wendy's trying to figure out how much a bill is. You would be more of the person trying to figure out how to avoid the cash register altogether by putting RFIDs in the packaging or some other ingenious idea. -----
You want the truth! You can't handle the truth! |
| February 5th, 2010 at 7:35:55 AM permalink | |
| SplittingAA Member since: Nov 13, 2009 Threads: 3 Posts: 42 | I loved this entire thread with everyone making excellant points, but...
was my favorite. Phil: I'm pretty sure that's illegal too.
Alan: Yeah, maybe after 9/11, where everybody got so sensitive. Thanks a lot, bin Laden. |
| February 5th, 2010 at 7:50:40 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Nov 2, 2009 Threads: 147 Posts: 2647 |
Well, they miss more than math class sometimes. Here is another true fast-food-cashier story. I go into Burger King because I feel like having a Whopper. There is no line so I stroll up. Kid behind the counter asks if I can settle an argument. I say, "sure, why not?" He asks, "Is Puerto Rico the 51st or 52nd state?" My reaction is total shock. I think I just told him there are only 50 states and Hawaii was the last acmitted in 1959. Trying to explain "Commonwealth Status" (it isn't a state and it isn't a territory but its also not quite independent, but they do have their own Olympic Team.....) in the time to make a fast food meal would have made his head explode. "The Roman Empire wasn't planned, but neither did it 'just happen.'" |
| February 5th, 2010 at 8:01:05 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Nov 2, 2009 Threads: 147 Posts: 2647 |
You have to make a distinction on the cash register thing. WOrking a register is a very monotonous job that turns your mind to mush fast. While you are thinking of one thing, the change, the clerk needs to think to ring up your order, get it right, and do it in less than a minute or so. Over and over. Same thing happens dealing BJ at a Monte Carlo Night. After an hour a person that is totally capable of using algebretic equiations to calculate a bid for varriable costs and a needed margin of profit has to think when he adds a 3, 6 and A. OTOH, you should be able to tell fairly easily if they are haveing a brain-stop and just slap their head when you tell them the answer or if they have a blank look as though you are speaking Russian. I think you are right on the typing. I was among the last few years where you took a formal class and people still put ads up later in college to type papers. I still remember the drills---"A-S-D-F-J-K-L-SEM" (Sem=short for semicolon) 25 years later. You had to know how to set up a page on a Selectric II Machine. In computer class there was such a difference between those who knew how and not they made it a prerequisite you took personal typing. Later in the work world I met a girl 10 years younger than me and she said there were no drills, they saw stuff on a screen and typed it in for practice. I give anyone a pass on spelling but not usage errors. IF not for spell-check I'd never get any job above manual labor. "The Roman Empire wasn't planned, but neither did it 'just happen.'" |
| February 5th, 2010 at 8:22:19 AM permalink | |
| tsmith Member since: Jan 15, 2010 Threads: 10 Posts: 75 | My first job, way back in 1969, when I was 16, was working at a small department store where our cash registers didn't only not calculate change, but weren't even electric! They were those big, clunky, black metal National Cash Register machines, and you had to figure out the total of what was being purchased, scribbling the numbers on a paper bag, and then press down on the keys and the little tabs would pop up in the window at the top. Well, I thought it was simply amazing that the old ladies who had worked at the store a long time, who I thought were too old to even know how to add and subtract any more, were able to figure out the total so quickly and without using a paper bag, since a lot of the items were priced at 97 cents (there was no sales tax in those days), so I asked one day how they did it. They explained that you just add up round dollars, then subtract 3 cents for each item, so that four items at 97c would be (4x1)- 12, or 3.88. Working at that store was also how I learned about giving someone $21 for a purchase of $16 if you didn't have the exact bills, because those same old ladies would ask the customers for the extra dollar sometimes. Now that I'm the same age as those old ladies, I realize how smart they were :) |
| February 5th, 2010 at 8:40:50 AM permalink | |
| AZDuffman Member since: Nov 2, 2009 Threads: 147 Posts: 2647 |
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| February 5th, 2010 at 9:22:02 AM permalink | |
| tsmith Member since: Jan 15, 2010 Threads: 10 Posts: 75 | People learn shortcuts for things they do a lot. You eat out once a week, you're leaving a tip once a week, so you figure out a way to do it easier and quicker. If you ate out only once a month or less, like your father perhaps? you wouldn't necessarily need the shortcut. Like the old ladies who worked in the store. If they weren't working the cash registers they wouldn't need to know that they could do that "subtract 3 cents" thing because someone else would do it for them. They figured it out because they had to do it all day long, and it made their jobs easier. My favorite example of people who aren't good at math doing complicated calculations would be my own father. He never made it past the 8th grade but he became a master carpenter and used the "3-4-5 method" to determine if what he was building was square. When I told him he was, in fact, applying the Pythagorean Theorum to his projects, he was amazed that someone like him could be doing such "high math". |
| February 5th, 2010 at 11:14:27 AM permalink | |
| pacomartin Member since: Jan 14, 2010 Threads: 508 Posts: 5165 | I did try and explain to a high school girl how to calculate 5 minus 3+1/4 . I said if you were working a cash register and the bill was $3.25 and someone gave you a $5 bill you would county at 3 quarters and then give them a dollar bill. So the answer was 1+3/4. --------- She looked at me and said What are you talking about? Of course then I realized that no one has done that in decades. Which reminds me of the wit who said you used to get your coins in the palm of your hand and then your bills on top. Now people read the change and they hand you the bills, and then give you the coins so that they all fall on the floor. Of course, even that observation is getting dated. Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly -Edgar, betrayed son of Gloucester in King Lear |
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