Rant: Your child does not know how to ADD!

[Misunderestimator]

Really!! I can't tell you how many times I have had to correct people in stores when they've given me the wrong change... and it's usually TOO MUCH! The other day, a teenage clerk forgot to enter $20 in the register as the amount I gave her. The purchase was $16.84. She had to punch that complex calculation into a little calculator she had (TWICE) to figure out what to give me, even though I said, "$3.16 is the change."

Unbelievable.

(On edit... in case I'm insulting anyone, apologies, just had to have a story to go along with my copycat thread. :) )

[SheepyMcSheepster]

1. some people are not great at math on the spot.

i am no moron, but sometimes simple addition/subtraction really hangs me up if i am under pressure. people are different.

[Misunderestimator]

6. I understand... but I would think someone who is a working a cash

register, wouldn't feel under pressure for simple subtraction when they presumably do it for hours a day. :shrug:

[Hoping4Change]

17. I grade school we spent days learning how to make change.

Is that no longer in the curriculum?

[SheepyMcSheepster]

19. i'm sure it is, all i am saying is some people are "wired" differently

simple math puts always stops me in my tracks. everyone is a master of something. just because someone is horrid at computations does not make them a moron.

[Misunderestimator]

20. I never said it made them a moron... however, if you work a cash register

adding and subtraction should be something you become familiar with. Sorry you took it the wrong way, really.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

21. all i am saying is some people take longer to do it

it is not that they can't do it.

i get tired of people being amazed at other's ineptitude. these people are working a crummy job they probably don't like, cut them some slack. would you love to have customers nit-picking every calculation you make?

i sure wouldn't. whenever i deal with cashiers i try to be as polite and as non-judgemental as i can, i wouldn't want thier job.

just leave them be.

edit: i don't mean to get all up in arms about this, but i could imagine someone saying the same things about me if i had a job as a cashier.

[Misunderestimator]

22. You're taking this too personally... I was very polite, and gave her the..

answer... It also required the use of a calculator... not just her being slower to do it. And besides... This was a COPYCAT thread. For the third time, I'm sorry if I offended you. Truce?

[SheepyMcSheepster]

25. sorry, i apologize for dragging this out

:D

don't mind me. no hard feelings. i apologize for making it more than it is.

truce for sure.

i didn't know this was a copy cat thread, hehe

:D :hi:

[Misunderestimator]

27. No problem, thanks for the post :)

:hi:

[eyesroll]

2. Oh, this is a huge peeve of mine

My favorite is when I had them a $20 for that $16.84, and then I say, "oh, I might have 84 cents" -- and they tell me that they can't possibly do anything because the machine has already calculated the correct change...:eyes:

I refused to use a calculator to settle my drawer when I used to work at Kids R Us. I would tally it up by hand. (I'm not a luddite -- I just knew I'd fat-finger the calculator and end up having to do it over.) My manager and co-workers thought I was nuts.

[Misunderestimator]

15. LOL... I don't even bother anymore, if they've already hit the key.

Just not worth the effort. I have jars of change in the house because of this.

[LynneSin]

3. We have computers & calculators - why bother with math

We were never allowed to use calculators until we got to advance math like trig or calculus. Then you needed one

:eyes:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

32. I can't even get the right answer with a calculator

sometimes...

It's mathematical dyslexia...

[Doosh]

4. I'm great at "petty math"

but stuff like Algebra 2, well I guess I knew it at one time. But forget it, I can't even help my cousin with his 8th grade homework anymore. Never used it my life and it just slipped my mind I guess. Some of the most successful people I know have 6th or 7th grade math skills.

[miss_kitty]

5. i was trained to ignore the display

and to count back change thusly:
$16.84 out of $20. (penny)$16.85, (nickel)90, (dime)$17, (dollar bills)$18, 19 and 1 is 20.

i consistantly confound the morans by giving the extra change so i can maximise my quarters...

[redqueen]

7. That bothers me as well

I've been called a luddite for saying kids shouldn't be allowed to use calculators in school until they get to the higher level math courses.

[johnnie]

8. Reminds me of a story..

I once went to see Pink Floyd at the old Cleveland stadium in the 80s. I went up to buy two beers off of one of the guys walking around. Each beer cost me $2.50 so I handed the guy a 20. He started doing his calculations in his head and then handed me back 30 bucks. Even though I had had a few beers and ingested my ...what you are supposed to ingest at a Pink Floyd concert, I was amazed that this guy was given a job where he couldn't do simple math. I had to slowly do the math for him and got the correct change.
Actually...I felt bad for the guy.

[BigMcLargehuge]

9. best copycat title ever!

I had to read it TEN times before i realized it wasn't an post I'd read this morning.

[Misunderestimator]

11. Thanks!

*patting self on back*... I thought it was slightly clever :)

[BigMcLargehuge]

23. that's much more than slightly clever

that's evil genius clever!

[ChoralScholar]

34. As the official author of the tinderbox this thread was copied from

I am proud to have been copycatted. :)

'Tis my lot in life... I either have the 'touch of death' or I stir up a shitstorm (Refer to - Girl, Chained to Bed, Dies in Fire).

[Misunderestimator]

35. LOL...

I was just going to kick this in order to see it near its namesake.

:D

[rbnyc]

29. hmmm. I missed the other thread. (nt)

[Misunderestimator]

30. At your service:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=1579648&mesg_id=1579648

[rbnyc]

31. LOL. Thanks.

:)

[KurtNYC]

10. Gave the manager at Staples $21 for a $10.80 purchase

He promptly types in $11.00 into the cash register and the adreniline just shoots up in me.

If you have ever had one of those "I gave you a $20" arguments, you know why. Fortunately he was so stoned (I'm serious, that is my best guess, pot-stoned at 1PM) he just took my word for it and then his eyes glazed up again trying to figure out what to do next.

And they think they are saving money by hiring people who don't give a ship to handle THEIR money.

[Misunderestimator]

12. They do that because they know that the poor kids will have to

pony up the cash for the mistakes they make at the end of the day out of their pay.

[demnan]

13. Cashiers don't count back correctly.

It's easy to give back change if you count back, but they've never learned that. They reason is, they work the newer cash registers that tell you what change to give back.

I learned (I know it was back before the ark) how to give change back on one of those old cash registers. You had to learn how to give change when you worked one of those. It wouldn't tell you how much to give back.

(I'll go get back in my rocker now).

[Misunderestimator]

14. We can both sit on the porch rocking watching the young-uns go by.

:D

[ReadTomPaine]

24. A similar pet peeve of mine…

When making change, 90% give back the bills first instead of the coins – making the coins invariably slide off of the bills and scatter over the counter. Reminds me of someone giving you a drink before a cup! A small thing, but when you do it dozens to hundreds of times a day, you’d think every small gain in efficiency would be welcome!

RTP

[Nay]

33. Yeah, what's with that? When I was a kid, all you had to know was

how to count back people's change -- it was easy as pie, even if you couldn't add worth a shit.

Even if it IS an "old-fashioned" way of giving change, if you can't add or subtract in your head and you have fucked up on your new-fangled cash register, you can STILL count back the change to the customer.

[DS1]

16. MISUNDERESTIMATOR 3:16!!!!!

or some such WWE reference

[Misunderestimator]

18. LOL

That scared me.

[yellowcanine]

26. Cashiers should learn to count out the change - less mistakes that way.

This is a lack of training. Anyone can be taught to count out change. And you want to really confuse a shaky cashier - just give them the extra change to get a whole dollar amount back. For some reason this really confuses some cashiers.

[rbnyc]

28. Lazy brains, bad schools, uneducated parents...

...it's sad.

I've been worried about where my son will go to school. I really don't want to leave the city, but I don't want to pay for private school either. But then I think, how much did I really learn in school, and how much did I learn at home?

I remember my parents putting a lot of pressure on me to be able to show that I'm smart. I completely understand.