My education rant

[zzzippper]

This happened twice in the last two days or I wouldn't waste anyone's time with it.

I went to the register and the total cost of my items was $8.42. I gave the teenage mouth-breather $10.47 and he tried to return the two pennies to me. I gave them back and said, "you owe me $2.05." He entered it in the register and by golly I was right! Same thing yesterday with different numbers.

If you don't trust me and you don't trust yourself why not just enter it in the cash register with enough computing power to send a man to Mars?

 

[S42N8]

In deference to a certain thread, this post contains free-range sarcasm.

You expect the current generation to do math in public? Optimist!

 

[Rintimtin]

I've never been to good at the numbers learnin so it's your fault for giving him such a ridiculous number to change [emoji13]

 

[drmweaver2]

It has little to, I believe, with either education or age.

It's got everything to do with being lazy.

Laziness is encouraged in the sales/store industry today if you ask me. Anything out of the ordinary is discouraged. Hell, look at BK/MickeyD cash registers... they use pictures, not item descriptions...see the little picture, punch the key. No engagement of braincells required.

Your mistake was asking the cashier to think. Shame on you.

 

[kpap]

To the op, why would you give the cashier such a ridiculous amount that makes no sense. Just so you could get a kick out of it. You do realize this is a cashier and not a rocket scientist. JMHO

 

[meaneyedcatz]

Numbers have always been hard for me (mathematically). But when I got my first job I ASKED and learned about making change.

Todays cash registers will tell the employee how much to give back!!!!

I can empathize with those who don't "get it" but I cannot stand laziness and not even trying to learn.

 

[Chuck24]

There's an app for that.

 

[Cardboard_killer]

I often give odd amounts to get even numbers back. I don't want to carry a change purse! But, I usually hold back if I think that cashier won't be able to handle it.

My first job involving a cash register taught me about counting money, when, in my first two weeks, a guy quick changed me out of $20. I knew as he walked away that I had been taken, but by the time mall security arrived he was long gone. After that, I learned how to count money the right way.

I recently had to cover for one of my supervisors who did the daily deposit. Even after all these years, in the ten days of doing the deposit I was right every time I counted it. Felt good.

 

[Tom S.]

It's nothing new. Back in the early 70's, I went to a local drive through bank to cash my paycheck. When the money came back in an envelope, I counted it and told the teller she made a mistake. "I don't make mistakes." I was told, so I drove off with $20 more than I should have had.

The next day I received a phone call from the bank. "We gave you too much money yesterday." I replied that I had tried to tell them that, and what I was told. "Well, you need to bring it back, and when will you be here?". I told them I wasn't making a special trip for their mistake and would return it next time I was near the bank. A couple days later I stopped and returned the $20. You'd have thought I was Jessie James.

It wasn't long after I joined the local credit union.

 

[drmweaver2]

It's nothing new. Back in the early 70's, I went to a local drive through bank to cash my paycheck. When the money came back in an envelope, I counted it and told the teller she made a mistake. "I don't make mistakes." I was told, so I drove off with $20 more than I should have had.

The next day I received a phone call from the bank. "We gave you too much money yesterday." I replied that I had tried to tell them that, and what I was told. "Well, you need to bring it back, and when will you be here?". I told them I wasn't making a special trip for their mistake and would return it next time I was near the bank. A couple days later I stopped and returned the $20. You'd have thought I was Jessie James.

It wasn't long after I joined the local credit union.

My Dad told a similar story about the US Army Finance Center at Fort Belvoir. He was a civilian working for the Corps of Engineers and the Finance Center had just instituted a policy of "you walk away from the counter, you don't come back claiming a mistake." They gave him too much and he'd walked away. He returned to the counter trying to return the extra and they very nastily refused it, including the cashier supervisor saying something. So he left.

Got back to his office and later that afternoon, when they were balancing their registers/books/whatever, he got a phone call to return the money. He told them to go **** themselves. 5 minutes later his boss walked into his office and asked about it. 15 minutes later, the MPs showed up to escort him back. He told them to arrest him or go away. There was literally no proof that he'd committed a crime so they left.

The next morning he went over to the Finance Center and returned the money. The manager tried to make it a policy that he couldn't cash his payroll checks there after that. Dad took that to the Base Inspector General and that was the end of that.

Dad's boss actually took some flack of Dad's actions, but he took Dad out to drinks to laugh about the stupidity of it all.

 

[BaldEagle1313]

Before I started my first job at the burger place my mom helped me practice counting change back to a customer - there was no such thing as the register doing the calculations for you.

These days on something like that I tell the cashier why I'm giving them what I am; so that they know it's to get back quarters or bills instead of 87 cents in change.

If it's over 5 bucks nowadays I just use the debit card. It's simpler, and more polite to the people in line behind me so they aren't waiting longer while the kid tries to figure it out.

 

[fiasconva]

I was in Subway just last week. My bill came to $4.12. I gave the young man a five and twelve cents. He actually had to call the manager over for help. The manager looked at me,rolled his eyes, and then said, "Just give him a *** dollar back." I don't think that kid ever figured it out. As for the education part, it's taught, but that doesn't mean they retained any of it.

 

[vytoland]

This happened twice in the last two days or I wouldn't waste anyone's time with it.

I went to the register and the total cost of my items was $8.42. I gave the teenage mouth-breather $10.47 and he tried to return the two pennies to me. I gave them back and said, "you owe me $2.05." He entered it in the register and by golly I was right! Same thing yesterday with different numbers.

If you don't trust me and you don't trust yourself why not just enter it in the cash register with enough computing power to send a man to Mars?

ive encountered this several times over the years...........it baffles me how A-B = ? turns into a complex math problem for so many......

 

[finesse_r]

I am curious why you would give him 10.47 when you clearly could have given him 10.42? LOL Did you just want a different nickle than the one you gave him, or are you also a fairly recent graduate of our modern education system?

Just asking?

 

[TX-Dennis]

I am curious why you would give him 10.47 when you clearly could have given him 10.42? LOL Did you just want a different nickle than the one you gave him, or are you also a fairly recent graduate of our modern education system?

Just asking?

I wasn't there, but I'm guessing the OP didn't have any nickels . . . one quarter, two dimes, two pennies - .47. At least it did when I went to school.

 

[e3mrk]

You all want fries with that?

 

[susieqz]

you know, i don't think this has anything to do with education.
i think these are all rich kids.
me n my friends never had to work at learning how to figure correct change.
none of us ever had much money n there's no way we'd take a chance on losing a penny.
so we all could do this stuff in our head.
i can do this faster than their machines, but that's because money was hard to come by.

 

[mojave30cal]

If these kids are our country's future, we're screwed!

 

[pawngal]

My daughter started working in our pawnshop on Saturdays when she was 13. We have never had a cash register much less one of those fancy electronic things. Customers were amazed that she could actually count back change. Don't know how or when she learned maybe just good common sense. She even figured sales tax in her head most of the time.
And get this, she hated math and it was her worst subject in school.

 

[msinc]

I look at things a little different than the rest of the world I guess...that makes me odd man out many times. At least the kid is working, and at his age and station in life he no doubt would rather be elsewhere. But he's not, he is right there putting in time.
I have a lot of respect for teenagers that have what we all refer to as "menial" jobs. They are not fun, they are not high paying and given some of the comments on here they don't garner much respect and are thus not even a good stepping stone to a better job, but still the kid is there putting in his time. When I see a teen working a "first job" I try and help him/her out if they get confused...not add to it and complain later.
Now the "grown ups" on the local Navy base...yeah, you want to make fun or disrespect someone, there's your target. Friday afternoon at 1:00pm all the 14 acre parking lots on the base have about three cars in them!!! These people mosey on in to "work" at 9:00am, take a 2 hour lunch and leave at 2:00pm on the days they do show up. Meanwhile 1/3 of the money I make goes to finance all this...and you have to complain about a teen working his first job????? I would hire a kid who worked at McDonald's before I hire one of those people that work for govt. contractors any day.