Interesting and an eye opener

[Kerr]

Last Saturday I ordered a pizza over the phone. When I went to pick it up a young guy, looking to be about 17, waited on me and told me my order came to $16.61. I dug out the 61 cents and handed it over, and having a wad of bills in my wallet that I wanted to reduce, I gave him a five and a one. Then I gave him a twenty (I didn't have a ten or any more fives). He looked at it a moment and then looked at me rather quizzically, as if needing an explanation. I told him that I had just gave him $26.61 and would like ten dollars back. This didn't register at all. So I told him exactly what I had just done, that the bill was $16.61 and the total amount of money I had given him was $26.61 and that 16.61 from 26.61 was 10. He was still drawing a blank, and after a moment called one of the other workers to come over and take a look at what was happening. She immediately saw the situation and told him to give me $10.00. Almost reluctantly he handed over my $10.00. What was interesting is that here was what I assume to be a high school senior---perhaps a junior---who was intelligent looking enough, but unable to do simple math in his head. I know there are a number of people out there who are in the same boat, but I had never come across one before.

Ever have one of these encounters?

Have had a couple of them. But it was me who didn't "get it" . Mainly because I'm horrible at working under pressure. Then even trivial problems can seem impossible, lol. Might be the same with this guy.

 

[Skwim]

Have had a couple of them. But it was me who didn't "get it" . Mainly because I'm horrible at working under pressure. Then even trivial problems can seem impossible, lol. Might be the same with this guy.

Indeed it might.

 

[dust1n]

Um, 17 means born in 1998.

I was trying to get ten years back in change.

Ah, the irony.

 

[Gary Sheldrake]

Last Saturday I ordered a pizza over the phone. When I went to pick it up a young guy, looking to be about 17, waited on me and told me my order came to $16.61. I dug out the 61 cents and handed it over, and having a wad of bills in my wallet that I wanted to reduce, I gave him a five and a one. Then I gave him a twenty (I didn't have a ten or any more fives). He looked at it a moment and then looked at me rather quizzically, as if needing an explanation. I told him that I had just gave him $26.61 and would like ten dollars back. This didn't register at all. So I told him exactly what I had just done, that the bill was $16.61 and the total amount of money I had given him was $26.61 and that 16.61 from 26.61 was 10. He was still drawing a blank, and after a moment called one of the other workers to come over and take a look at what was happening. She immediately saw the situation and told him to give me $10.00. Almost reluctantly he handed over my $10.00. What was interesting is that here was what I assume to be a high school senior---perhaps a junior---who was intelligent looking enough, but unable to do simple math in his head. I know there are a number of people out there who are in the same boat, but I had never come across one before.

Ever have one of these encounters?

I think you threw a generational curve at him. He has probably never seen cash, and reacted like you would have at his age if a customer handed you a sack of gold nuggets. Basically, he probably thought you were from out of the old west or something. I see this all the time because I'm too old to be young and too young to be old. I watch this stuff happen all the time. A few months back, a woman in her twenties at work IM'd me and asked me if I had time to go to lunch later that day. I pinged her back and said we could "play it by ear." Ten minutes later she pinged me back triumphantly and said she looked up what I said and explained that she now understood that I was using a term that was once used to say that "we would see how it goes." Anyway, I feel kind of dumb now when I used a credit card at Starbucks instead of pointing my phone at the cashier. I feel like tapping my temple with my index finger like I've moved on to some telepathic means of payment or something. Like, "WTF do you mean, what am I doing? I'm using my temple chip, you dangitang."

 

[Glaurung]

Yeah I had to teach a co-worker of mine the concept of division.

An example would be an order for 405 bottles of 5L engine coolant, and he would want to know how many pallets that would be. The bottles are packed in cartons of three and you can fit 45 cartons on a pallet. So that's 135 bottles a pallet. 405/3 = 135 cartons; 135/45 = 3 pallets.

He would try to multiply 135 by increasing integers until he got the ordered quantity. 135*2 = 270, 135*3 = 405, Ah! Three pallets.

That of course was an easy example, but you can see how inefficient the multiplication method gets when you get order asking for thousands.