Re: Obsolete Skills
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1) cash register attendants: can't do simple arithmitic, i just feel bad for these people. It makes me realize how bad the education system is in our country.
[/ QUOTE ]
Bill is $5.61. They enter the cost and the amount you gave them ($10) and they see the result on the display ($4.39). You then proceed to hand them 11 cents. Watch with amusement at the resulting deer-in-headlights look and wisps of smoke curling out of their ears.
[/ QUOTE ]
When I worked retail, I basically turned my brain off. So I just gave the person however much the machine told me to give. So if a customer all of a sudden gave me 11 cents, I have no idea what he is doing, because I hadn't been paying attention since I mentioned the total. Not stupidity, just complete lack of attention.
[/ QUOTE ]
I was going to comment on this as well. While it's true that a lot of cashiers are just [censored] stupid, the effect is magnified by the fact that in most instances the cashier really has no need to pay any attention to what is going on. I am very good with numbers and for the most part I had no problem handling these types of things, but every now and then I'd just be on autopilot and completely [censored] something up. For example, a guy gives me change so he can get an even dollar amount in return, but I hit a wrong key when typing it, and the machine tells me to give him some strange number of cents back and I do it, and he thinks I've lost my mind.
Or the bill is $14.39 and someone gives me $20.00 but I enter $2.00 and now it tells me $12.39 and doesn't open the drawer... obviously I can calculate $20.00 - $14.39 in my head but the problem is that I don't even remember what it was that he owed in the first place, or what I just did (after doing it a couple times then you realize you missed a zero and just need to do $18.00 now to fix it, but the first time it happens is very confusing).
To the customer, they know what they owe, and how much money they gave, so it seems easy... but the cashier has been dealing with these numbers for hours on end and it all just runs together. Once I'm done with a number, it just gets purged from my brain. I think one time someone didn't even give me enough money and I didn't realize it until the machine told me they still owed more.
ok, sorry for the hijack, I got carried away =(
|