I don’t think basic mathematical literacy is taught as (or even considered to be) a crucial life-skill any longer. You can forget about percentages making any impression on folks for whom commercials now must be worded: “Three times cheaper than thus-and-such”. That doesn’t make any logical sense at all unless you know what amount the regular price is cheaper than some theoretical SRP so you can multiply that difference by three. No one understands “costs only one third as much as…” any longer, apparently.
Haven’t you encountered otherwise intelligent-seeming cashiers who have to call the manager if they need to make change at all? – and forget giving them an extra 2 cents when the amount is $X.27 in order to make the change come out as a whole quarter rather than an insignificant (and basically useless) handful of cents, nickels and dimes – you’d think this was the secret of inexhaustible rocket fuel or some such.
The ultimate dumbing-down of the populace is succeeding better IRL than in the wildest imaginations of those who thought it would benefit them not to have anyone know or understand what they were talking about.
Listen up dips**t! There is an actual learning disability called Dyscalculia which makes it difficult to deal with numbers and math. This includes giving you back the precious as pocket change. You will see more workers with this as retail cashiers because if they had good math skills, they would be working in fields like engineering or chemistry. How about showing some consideration and empathy. How about not shooting off your mouth. How about shutting the hell up!
“40% of 50 is 50% of 40. That’s 20 bucks off the original price. $30.00 please.” Oh, wait, you don’t learn that until 4th grade, my mistake.
I don’t think basic mathematical literacy is taught as (or even considered to be) a crucial life-skill any longer. You can forget about percentages making any impression on folks for whom commercials now must be worded: “Three times cheaper than thus-and-such”. That doesn’t make any logical sense at all unless you know what amount the regular price is cheaper than some theoretical SRP so you can multiply that difference by three. No one understands “costs only one third as much as…” any longer, apparently.
Haven’t you encountered otherwise intelligent-seeming cashiers who have to call the manager if they need to make change at all? – and forget giving them an extra 2 cents when the amount is $X.27 in order to make the change come out as a whole quarter rather than an insignificant (and basically useless) handful of cents, nickels and dimes – you’d think this was the secret of inexhaustible rocket fuel or some such.
The ultimate dumbing-down of the populace is succeeding better IRL than in the wildest imaginations of those who thought it would benefit them not to have anyone know or understand what they were talking about.
Listen up dips**t! There is an actual learning disability called Dyscalculia which makes it difficult to deal with numbers and math. This includes giving you back the precious as pocket change. You will see more workers with this as retail cashiers because if they had good math skills, they would be working in fields like engineering or chemistry. How about showing some consideration and empathy. How about not shooting off your mouth. How about shutting the hell up!
I’m horrible at math, especially percentages. But even I know that this guy’s an idiot!