Do they not teach basic math anymore.
 

Stopping by McDonalds this morning for some breakfast, I order my combo with a large coffee. The total, with tax, comes to $4.55.

(I can remember the commercials "feed a family of four for $5" but I digress..)

I pay with a $50.

Cashier (about age 18) mis-types the amount tendered in the cash register. the computer shows that my owed change is $0.45.

Looking at my $50, she knows the computer is wrong, realizes her mistake. She then promptly calls over the manager to do the math for her. She didn't even TRY to do it in her head..

Manager looks over and says "You need to give him $43.45"

I corrected them both, and got my correct change

:mad:

Doomed... we are all doomed....

I swear we should be teaching folks how to use an abacus.

If you can't read or do math, it is a sign you are ready to proceed to the next grade. Get with the program, man!

Your so right,
if you can't make correct change..
you need to be paid in monopoly geld.
Rika

Here's a scary story. In college, some friends and I were at some other friends' place and there was a big bag of reefer on the coffee table.

One girl inquires: "Wow! How much is in there?"

Guy replies, "An ounce."

Girl: "How many eighths is that?"

Entire rooom in unison: "EIGHT."

Girl: "Well geeze, I don't know anything about metrics."

I am not kidding. This conversation really took place between folks who had made it into college.

Re: Do they not teach basic math anymore.
 

No great surprise, public schooling is crap, even the really good public schools can be gotten through without really getting it. My kids went to a school that's known for being one of the best in the area, they regularly win the academic decathalons, lots of scholarships, etc... Plenty of the kids managed to slip through. Hell, in school they were required to use a calculator in math.

Of course, that's why they were working at McD's. If they were too educated they wouldn't be working there, and we need someone to fill that role.

I've taught myself. If you have kids you should definitely take the time. I think it would be really, REALLY useful as kids are learning math. It would be especially useful for kids who have a problem with math.

It's amazing how easy it is to slip through our education system unaffected, isn't it?

I went to school straight of out HS about 15 years ago and started back again last year. There are plenty of idiots running around college. It's amazing.

Like I said before, we need those people, otherwise everyone would be doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc... and no one would be around to work the other jobs.

That's why they work at McDonald's! What I don't like, is they just raised the minimum wage to $6.9something. Over paid and under educated/trained.

What's even funnier is look at the cash register some time. Notice that it is pictures instead of numbers. So when you order a cheese burger they press the cheese burger picture. Then there are buttons for combos etc. McD's should make them use the numbers on a daily basis then they would understand it better.

I went to a snooty prep school, where you flat out did not get out of there without knowing how to read and write and do math. Any D student there was probably better equipped than most A/B students from today's public schools. In my AB Calculus class once, a kid asked the teacher, "Mr. G, when am I ever going to use the second derivative in real life?" Teacher replied, "I used it last night while on line at the grocery store." We all laughed, but the sick thing is, he was the kind of guy who could set up such equations in his head that fast. My dad is one of those guys too. Not many of them left out there.

I see your point, but the problem is that there are people that are trying to live on that wage. There are "adults" who have graduated HS and gotten married at 18 or 19 and work at retail jobs and are trying to live, rent an apt, eat, drive a car, have car ins. Have you ever tried to do that on $7/hr? I think that's about $16-17k a year.

Life is hard on stupid people. Anyone who gets married and has kids while flipping burgers is an idiot and deserves to stay poor.

...and buy beer, cigs, lotto tix, crack, tattoos, body piercings, etc...

As an A/B student from a public school, I resent that! Oops, my break's over. I gotta get back to the cash register. :eek:

Seriously though, one of my little pleasures in life is to hand a cashier something like $5.07 when the total came to $4.82. They usually look befuddled, then they type it in and see that the change is a quarter, they get this "DUUUUUDE" look on their face.

Yes, I have. When I graduated HS I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do. My parents weren't going to pay for college so I moved out and got a job (front desk clerk at a motel $7.50/hr) and signed up for classes at a Community College. It SUCKED! So I quit school to save money for school and it didn't work like I planned. So I joined the military for 4yrs for the GI bill. Got out and used the GI bill for school. Graduated from MSU with a BS in Civil Engineering in three years while I worked about 25-30hrs a week. Then I got married had kids, etc... That's my story in a nutshell.

Back on Topic: I guess I'm more upset at the hike in min wage because our economy here in MI is still struggling so they raise min wage? We are WAY too dependent on the auto industry and as you've all heard that US car manufactures aren't doing the greatest. Anyways, all that is for another thread. But I guess, in my mind, these jobs are for kids in HS or even college. These types of jobs are NOT careers even though people try to make them that way.

How else are you going to get white people to work?
;)

"... and so after playing football for 5 years, they let me graduate..."

what if it goes in your favor? do you say anything? like if you hand him a $50, he gives you back $54.55?

Re: Do they not teach basic math anymore.
 

I don't know of any retail or fast food joint that would take a $50...

Dare I suggest its a regional American phenomenon...? :D

Except when you have a 5 out, the total coes to 4.82, the guy has already punched in the 5.00 when you hand him the additional 7 cents. Love the quizzical look. At that point you could tell him that your correct change is 20 bucks and they probably wouldn't question it.

Nope. Under 15k a year.

He couldn't do the math.

the manager was counting my drawer and said I was $44.38 off so i was distracted.












But if you want I can do binary to decimal conversions in my head and give you ranges of IP addresses.

Binary....or Hexidecimal? I'm rusty (use it or lose it), but I used to be really good at mental hex stuff (LOTS of experience reading dumps, traces, etc.), but I haven't messed with strings of 1s and 0s since college (where one memorable assignment was coding a program in 'machine language').... I couldn't imagine doing binary conversions (more than a byte or two long)....I NEED hex as a crutch :)!

PS: you must be one of the 10 types of people....one who understands vs. those who don't!

I can do hex, but I'm slower. I do more network addressing and subnet masks which is binary. shudder... programming.

Yep, I'm one of the 10 people.

I gave him $255.25 in change because we're on an RFC 1918 class C

Originally posted by Rick Lee :

"Life is hard on stupid people".


I like that quote all by itself!

So we should overpay ignorant high school dropouts because some of them might have kids? The only way they are going to take responsibility for their lives is if they are not comfortable where they are at...

Every day that I am in a supplier's store I see grown men, business owners, asking for help figuring out brick, stone, wall block, etc. How pathetic! This is how you pay your bills, learn the damned trade! I'm talking square footage and volume for aggregate and simple construction math. It is fun though when the counter person knows me and aks for my help, I'm usually half the age of the other contractor, and always make it a point to use big words and quick math written in draftmans print.
-Jeremy

PS, when the wrong change thing happens to me, I just keep shaking my head until they figure it out themselves, I've gotten more in change than what I paid in the first place a couple of times, too. Fools. I am going to rule the world if things continue this way! I have been considering a hostile takeover of Ohio lately, any others from Michigan want to help?
-Jeremy

How much of the ninth eighth had she smoked at that point?

I think that's hilarious, but they must think you're a real ass. hahaha

PS What's "draftman's print"? Is it some sort of shorthand or are you just talking about the really neatly printed alphabet used in drafting? Google left me hanging.

I'm in!!!! http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/ar15.gif

Bill, we will need some kind of cool acronym to do this right, I'll start thinking...

Steve, yeah, I'm an ass, but if you want good math then you've gotta deal with it! Yes, I was reffering to neat hand writing, as opposed to the chicken scratch stuff I see from most people. I have seen other companies quotes/bids that are unreadable. My industry is hilarious.

You guys ever watch Jay Leno's Jay Walking? There are some amazingly stupid people out there.

I did construction for years before I went back to get my engineering degree. Amazing the guys that can't figure the square footage of a square room.:rolleyes:

What is it they say, 20 years ago American kids were near the best in the world at math, now they're not in the top 20? Scary world, hard to innovate and stay ahead when the majority of engineers and scientists are Indian, Chinese, Japanese, etc. Nobody that goes to college wants a "hard" degree, I can't count the people I know that majored in business management. Now they're working at Target for $25k a year, that education sure is paying off.

The sure sign of our decline is that we graduate more lawyers than engineers per year, while CHina and India to the inverse.

Yep. Half the people out there have below average intelligence.

The funny thing is that if half of them are at a given point, then they are average. It's just that the average is so darn low.

And, unfortunately some of them are fairly intelligent, they are just poorly educated because no one told them it was important. I put most of the blame with parents. If parents stressed education and grades more (and had control of their kids) then more kids would have better grades and better educations.

Sometimes it's the person's ability. Some people just have a brain that doesn't work as well as others, but for the most part, I think it's a vicious circle.

Uh, speaking of basic math....???