This is a true story. I wish it wasn’t, but it happened this past Saturday, May 7, 2011… my daughter and I were at Zaxby’s on Folly Road in Charleston. We placed our order and the total came to $14.67. I get a $20 bill out of my wallet, place it on the counter, and am reaching in my purse to see if I can locate two pennies. In the meantime, the cashier (a girl probably around 18 or 19 years old) punches in $20.00 as the cash tendered and up pops my change amount – $5.33. I place two pennies on the counter and the poor girl gets a scared look on her face, turns to her manager and says “Excuse me, I have a problem.” He turns to her to acknowledge her statement, and she says, “She gave me two pennies.” The manager didn’t answer right away (I’m hoping he was just shocked, but maybe he didn’t know what to do either.) I looked at her and said, “My change is now $5.35; just add those two pennies to that number.” She said, “oh, okay.” The evil voice in my head is screaming at me that I should have asked for more… okay, not really, I wouldn’t have done that.
But the point is… THIS SCARES ME…
Technology is a WONDERFUL thing, but we still have to learn to do at least basic math without the help of a calculator or fancy cash register. It seems that we’re teaching people how to use the gadgets, but not how the gadgets work, or what to do when the gadgets don’t work. I believe that everyone should be able to make change WITHOUT the aid of electronics. Yes, I spent many hours as a cashier in a grocery store. We didn’t have scanners. Each individual number had to be pushed in on different rows – the keys looked something like this:
The colorful buttons on the right side had labels like “Produce”, “Meat”, etc. If it was produce, we would push the produce button down first, then press the money amount. After the groceries were totaled, we had to calculate the sales tax using a tax table. And I remember HATING when an item was marked 3 for $1.75 and the person only bought one. When that happened, out came the pen and paper to figure out how much one item was (59 cents)… When fruits and vegetables were purchased, we weighed them on a large hanging scale, then looked the item up for it’s price, and then multiplied the weight by the price per pound WITH A PAPER AND PENCIL.
With all that said, please don’t misunderstand – I LOVE LOVE LOVE technology. I love computers and all the wonderful things they can do and the time they save. I am SO glad cashiers don’t have to go through what we had to anymore – BUT, on the other hand, I still think we all need to know HOW to do these basic functions and feel comfortable with them WITHOUT the aid of technology. This is BASIC STUFF – no rocket science here – These are the simple things that help us order our lives and get through each day.
Okay – enough ranting; I’m going to play on my computer for a while 🙂
whatever life throws at me... 