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Oct26
Why learn it? You’ll never use it!
Here’s an actual conversation that I had with an employee at Joann’s Fabric Store. I went to the store to get a Daddy Gimme (The Younger SPeak for Daddy Blanket) because the highly geeky cool chemistry pattern on the fabric. I brought a 40% coupon but the blanket was 50% off and I used the coupon for some Thomas the Tank Engine Stickers for the kids. So the total is $12.87
Handing her $13 in bills and then 7 cents.
“Here’s 13 and 7 cents”
She types in the amount and the display on the register reads “0.17″. I thought that didn’t seem right, I had given the 7 cents to get 2 dimes (that’s 20 cents for the mathematically challenge ;-) ). I leaned over and looked at the receipt as she was digging for the 17 cents. I see “13.04″ typed on the receipt.
“I gave you 13.07, the receipt says 13.04″
“Oh,” she says dropping the change back into the drawer. “How much do I owe you?”
“20 cents.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll trust you.” So she’s getting out the 2 dimes out of the drawer and I say something to the effect of “It’s that whole number thing.”
“Yeah, I’m not good at math, it’s a good thing I don’t need it here.”
*cricket chirping* I walk out of the store thinking “I gotta blog about that”.
Doesn’t need math? In a retail store? In a fabric cutting store, where you have to use numbers and math to figure out how to much fabric to cut? At the register where there is MONEY being exchange? *slaps hand on forehead*
Tags: observations
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7 Responses to “Why learn it? You’ll never use it!”
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Susan said on October 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
I love math! In fact, I attended a program we have here called Governor’s School, which happens the summer before your senior year of high school, and my area was Mathematics. I was a real nerd! But then I went to Architecture school (and I measure daily - to great length - pardon the pun) and now I can hardly make change… HA!
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Marianna said on October 26th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
WOAH! Check out the new template! I had to do a double-take to make sure I was at the right place! Very cool color layout, T!
LOL she clearly has the Marianna Syndrome of Math. I don’t “do” Math.
M~
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Stace said on October 26th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
You would have so hated being my boss when I worked at the craft store when I was in the customer service booth! The thing is though…I knew I needed it, and I was uber conscious about giving people the right change etc…but I was constantly having to call my poor dear manager up to fix my mistakes after the drawer was shut. I used to HATE when people would give me the odd change even though I had a computer to figure it out for me, because if I accidentally typed in the wrong amoungt (thank you dyslexia) then I was screwed! Now, however, I find I’m quite often the one giving the odd change, but not before I’ve figured in my head how much I should get back. It’s been good practice. Poor girl…too bad she had to top a stupid mistake with a stupid comment. I bet she never knew what hit her.
Stacie -
[...] was reminded of an incident that happened earlier this week while reading a blog post from Terry. He was talking about getting change from a clerk at the fabric store. Ours happened at [...]
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Junior Johnson said on October 30th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
WOW is the only thing that comes to mind.
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darrell said on November 9th, 2007 at 2:49 am
What is the world coming to?
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[...] but I don’t want to scare anyone. I saw how my readership dropped off after I gave you that mathematical scare. Just remember that mathematics, when used for recreational purposes, can be enlightening. I was [...]
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