Cashier couldn't make change for $100 bill

[Joe1]

I stopped at a local fast food type restaurant today. My bill was 14 and change and I informed the cashier that I only had a 100 dollar bill, but would pay with Credit Card if she could not accept it. She accepted the 100 dollar bill and mistakenly entered it as $20 and the screen indicated to give me $5 and change back. After realizing her mistake, she went into a total panic and called the manager over. "Just do it the old fashioned way and count the change", the manager said. "But I'm not good at math, the cashier replied". "Think about it. Add 80 dollars to the total amount of change and you're finished" the manager said. By this time the young woman was in an utter panic and it was apparant that she lacked the basic math skills to complate the transaction. The manager finally stepped in and counted my change up.

Who is accountable for allowing this young woman to go through the educational system without the ability to do third grade math? My property taxes are oppressive and my hard earned money is funding this young woman's education. Why is our educational system producing this caliber of person when vast resources are being poured into the educational system. Are the schools eschewing math in favor of PC these days?

 

[JHZR2]

And NJ has some of the best schools in the country.

The issue is that there always were idiots, and there always will be idiots, and there always were folks who just didnt have the ability to comprehend some things, as there always will be. I dont know which camp - idiot or just not quite capable that she falls into. She is obviously in one of them. The difference is that these days technology lets them slip by, unnoticed sometimes... Until something like this brings it to a head.

And of course in the world of no remediation, where everybody's a winner, this kind of stuff gets sugarcoated by technology, more time on tests, or something else.

None of those compromises are necessarily a bad thing, either. It may help them "learn"... It just doesnt mean that it is practical for making them into anything useful.

I guess the question really is if it is better to have someone reliant upon a calculator, but that can do something, or have them totally incompetent?

 

[The motor guy]

I'll admit I worked in a small retail store where I actually had to count the money and give them the change back. Now I never had a problem with it except for sometimes women would gived me money and change and then still want a small amount of coins back. That confused me to death. I understand when they are trying to get rid of their coins but giving me coins and then having me still give them coins back was ridiculous. You do have to consider that alot of places will fire you if you mess up and give the wrong amount back. So there is reason for them panicking.

 

[The motor guy]

Also the main problem is that when all they have to do is punch a button and then it shows them on the screen how much change to give back, they never think about how to actually count it because they never have to.

 

[morris]

can we say "DRUGS"

 

[Mr Nice]

How sad that she couldn't do the math in her head and give you back $85.** without calling the manager.

Off Topic:

McDonald's is having their 1¢ Big Mac or Quarter Pound cheeseburger promo on Monday for President's Day.

 

[nitehawk55]

Use of the calculator in schools ended being able to do math in your head years ago .

 

[bdcardinal]

When I take payment at work from a front counter customer, I have to take it to the service cashier. If it is a credit card, I run it myself. But if it is cash, I have to have the cashier get the change. I usually do the math in my head since I wasn't allowed to use a calculator in HS.

We have one cashier that is rather slow. He isn't really a cashier, he is our receptionist. He fills in when the real cashier is on lunch or doing other paperwork. With him I will do the math on my IPhone and show him the change I need. However he insists on doing the math on a print calculator himself. That is usually alright, but he screws that up and insists on giving me the wrong change most of the time. The latest was trying to give me $187 in change when I only needed $.18. After insisting he was wrong he made me take it. I just gave the customer the correct change and put the balance in an envelope and gave it to my manager. At the end of the day when the count was off, we walked it in and explained what happened. He still works though

 

[Oldasco]

A few years ago we stopped at a fast food restaurant that had just been open for a couple of weeks and the kids working the registers were inexperienced. The kid at the restaurant I was paying jumbled up the keys on the cash register after I gave her $20 and she needed to give me about $9 change. She started handing me money, and when I started counting the change she said to me with a very sincere look of concern on her face: "Is that enough?" She couldn't count too good, but we worked it out fair and square.

 

[Chris142]

I'm math stupid too. I can't make change w/o a calculater. I had the same blue math book with clocks on the cover from 6th grade till I graduated. I even spent an ex
tra year in hs to try to learn math. We were not allowed to use calculaters so that was not my problem and I never did drugs. I did win spelling bees and got A's in auto shop,metal art and history classes though ... I'm stupid too I guess

 

[JohnnyZ52]

It's more about being put on the spot vs. not being able to do math. Plus, most places make employees pay back cash mistakes. Some people just freak out about certain things, everyone's different.


<~~ Managed in Fast Food before

 

[The motor guy]

Originally Posted By: Cujobob
It's more about being put on the spot vs. not being able to do math. Plus, most places make employees pay back cash mistakes. Some people just freak out about certain things, everyone's different.


div>


Yes, I think the fact that some are required to payback mistakes makes things worse. Think about it if someone screws up and ends up short 200 bucks. That's like 20hrs of work they need to do to pay it back.

 

[mrsilv04]

The teechur's yoonyuns obviously need more power. They also need to fight for even more pay, shorter class days, and shorter school years.

They're doing a great job.

 

[larryinnewyork]

I went to a pizzeria one time and asked the person slicing it to cut it into '12' slices, not '8'.
It totally confused him and the manager had to explain how to make it 12 slices.
I never went back.

 

[stephen9666]

Originally Posted By: Cujobob
It's more about being put on the spot vs. not being able to do math. Plus, most places make employees pay back cash mistakes. Some people just freak out about certain things, everyone's different.


I agree with this.

She was probably just panicking because it's a situation she doesn't see very often.

No need to condemn all of society and the school system because one person lost her cool and did something stupid.

 

[RiceCake]

Originally Posted By: motor_oil_madman
I'll admit I worked in a small retail store where I actually had to count the money and give them the change back. Now I never had a problem with it except for sometimes women would gived me money and change and then still want a small amount of coins back. That confused me to death. I understand when they are trying to get rid of their coins but giving me coins and then having me still give them coins back was ridiculous. You do have to consider that alot of places will fire you if you mess up and give the wrong amount back. So there is reason for them panicking.


I worked retail ages ago too; my terminal would calculate things for me obviously (lets say the order is $27.58 and they give me a $50, so it would show $22.42) but it became really quick and easy to fire off proper change based on that. $22.42, one twenty, a Canadian loonie, a quarter, a dime, nickel, and the tiniest brief pause when grabbing the two pennies for the obligatory "keep the pennies".

Of course the worst part was when someone would immediately change things up at the last second after I've handed them change. "Hang on, I'll give you two twenties and some random change I have instead."

I will accept that some people working retail are way too dependant on computers. I will agree that some work really shoddily under pressure and they fear screwing up so badly they don't want to stop and do the math for fear of being liable. [censored], just stopping to do the math throws some cashiers so off their game that they lock up; you're trained and chewed out all day to do math, flawlessly, at the speed of light. Its like learning how to drive stick and the second you hit top gear after just getting used to things, having to immediately brake and downshift to avoid a collision, all the while knowing you can stall or blow the engine or transmission if you mess up as you rush your choices through. It could end up a total disaster and some people will panic irrationally.

Usually, in the situation I just described, I would insist on stopping and rehashing things out quickly in my mind, and people would ignorantly insist on huffing stupidly or looking at their friends like aha, the cashiers these days can't do math, look how stupid this person is, I love judging people because they don't flawlessly react to my sudden curveball.

I had no problem making people change, but getting $50, giving them $22.42, having them only take the $2.42 in change, and then having them turn around and want to hand me something like $40.55 instead of the $50 and expect a perfect return calculation is completely ridiculous to expect instantly. I have a boss huffing down my neck to go faster and not screw up and you've just completely thrown a wrench in the mass, something that happens maybe one out of every five hundred transactions I've processed.

Ironically, most of the time this happened, the same stupid customer riding my [censored] about not being fast enough, would turn around and insist I got it wrong and was ripping them off. Usually by then the situation was such a confusing mess that they probably genuinely believed it, too.

If I was that good at doing instantaneous mental math I wouldn't be working at friggin' Chuck E Cheese, okay?

 

[DB_Cooper]

Humans becoming more stupid every day

 

[RiceCake]

Originally Posted By: DB_Cooper
Humans becoming more stupid every day


Humans are animals, animals are subject to natural selection. Humans used to survive soely based on being intelligent enough to master tools and techniques to prevent dying in prehistoric times. If you were smart, you didn't die, and naturally, you found yourself a woman to hit 'like a caveman' and carry on.

Since these days mastering tools and techniques means mastering hair gel and spray-on tans and the technique of getting so loaded you become a burden on all your friends to survive the night, its pretty telling when you post a link like that.

 

[Doog]

Originally Posted By: Joe1

Who is accountable for allowing this young woman to go through the educational system without the ability to do third grade math?


1. Her parents
2. Her.

 

[JimPghPA]

Some people could have access to the best teachers in the world, but not having the actual mental ability to think along those lines, there is no way any teachers no mater how many and how long they try, are going to be able to get those people to be decent at math.

Some people just don't have the gray matter to do the math.

I have a neighbor who has raised her kids, and is a very decent person. But she just can't figure out how to put a battery in something. She has to always have someone do it for her. She has shown me devices with multiple batteries in them that the batteries are arranged with polarity chosen by random chance when she put them in. She just does not get it when it comes to batteries.