Idiot sightings
 

Inspired by Classic's post here.

Not long after grocery store delis started using digital scales, my Mom asked for a third of a pound of ham. The young woman behind the counter froze with a confused look on her face. Mom translated ".33".

"Oooh." the girl said, "Do you work at a deli, too?"

:lol:

That is funny as hell. I wonder what most of them would do if they actually had to count your change back to you without the register telling them how much change to give you.

Some not even then.:smack:

I dunno. I worked as a cashier at Target a few years ago (just needed something to do!). Having learned the "proper" way to count change back from an elderly mom & pop grocery store owner in my teens, I did so once when I'd made a mistake putting in the correct cash amount and my customer FREAKED. Manager came over and had to void out the sale and start over, told me to never do that again. All because I'd put in $20 instead of $14.50 or something like that.

Believe it or, I've run into that. Same exact thing...I asked for a third of a pound of something and had to tell the clerk "it's when the scale says .33 pound. Morons!

lol - morans snigger.

I got it - thats why I was laughing.

:'(

The kid in early spring was in so much trouble as to not even know how to calculate the slope of a line or what an X and Y intercepts were. Of course, that is taught in October. Teacher simply kept passing him. Confrontations with the Superintendent eventually resulted in a lawsuit in State court. The school board paid $60,000 to reeducate the kid - a trust fund. They lost on all six counts in court - a slam dunk.

And BTW, that lady's Congressman Gerlach refused to help. The Congressman from another district (who will run for state Senator), Sestack, stepped forward to assist.

So I did some of the tutoring. I asked him what one quarter was. He started dividing one by four - long division. So, what is a quarter of a dollar? A quarter. A quarter of one - write 25 cents. Without being challenged by his teachers, even that relationship was never learned.

Doing volunteer house construction, many volunteers could not even identify one quater inch marks on a tape measure. At least some were college graduates. One I remember in particular was a communication major.

Now this is one of the better public school systems in the county - according to published stats. What happens in Philadelphia when 50% of students drop out?

Consumer Reports made this problem obvious when creating simple failures. Then taking that computer to a shop to fix. Most problems were never solved the first time. “Follow the evidence” – a simple concept that comes from even doing math – was never learned. Technical competence even among computer repairmen is so pathetic that repairmen immediately start swapping part - starting with the power supply. Cannot think through a problem. Do not even understand how to first define a problem. Never learn that simple concept as taught in math. Since relationships such as one divided by four is same as a quarter of a dollar.

Ask many cashiers to make change without using the cash register. They cannot even do what was done routinely in the jungle 100 years ago. Nobody needs a calculator to make change. But even that simplest concept that comes from learning how to solve problem by doing things is …

Kids here don't seem to understand "quarter" as anything except a coin either. They use the term "one fourth" everywhere else. Maybe terminology has changed to reduce confusion and you just weren't asking the question in the right way? I just assumed it was a Brit/American difference, but maybe it's a generational one.

I've never had that happen but I do think it's funny when they are a couple decimals over and they ask if that's ok. I've never said no so I don't know how they would tear off a fraction.