Warning: Smarter than actual sales help.
Hole in head optional.
Myself, at the local chocolatier’s establishment yesternight:
“I’d like half a dozen thingamajigs, please.”
Retarded Minion of Stupidity employed by said chocolatier:
“How many thingamajigs would you like?”
Myself:
“Half a dozen, please.”
Retarded Minion, now looking thoroughly bumflustercated:
“Um…how many would that be?”
Myself, thankful that Retarded Minion is juuuuuust barely beyond range of a polite roundhouse slap to the side of the head sufficient to loosen fillings:
“That would be six thingamajigs, please.”
Retarded Minion, flooded with obvious relief at being freed from further mathemagical distress and consternation:
“Ah!…Yes, six, got it.”
Gobsmacked: Not only an actual thing, but frequently also the solution to the problem.
The bill for the thingamajigs was then announced as $6.96, whereupon I handed her a $5 bill and two singles, and I swear for a moment it looked as if she was going to have to take off her shoes to count, and failing that ploy, be forced to use her lifeline to call the engineers at NASA to correctly calculate that she owed me 4¢ in change thereof.
Which is by way of noting that she was old enough to vote, and English-fluent, but that clearly second grade mathematics had completely kicked her ass, and she should be beaten with a stout rod until she could master the fundamentals of basic math.
That the common phrase “half a dozen” baffled the blistering fuck out of her suggests that the manager there is similarly a lackwit in urgent need of a new job in either the custodial maintenance or street-level recycling industries.
Retarded Minion’s (undoubtedly Common Core public education) teachers, to the last one, should be horsewhipped until their flesh is ripped off and the bones show, and then put up against a wall and shot.
Slowly, starting at the toes, and working up to more important parts.
Put in charge of the firing party, I should make them each count the rounds as they were fired.
I swear to Buddha, I’m going back there tomorrow, and if she’s still employed there, I’m going to pay her with $2 bills and $1 coins, just to watch her head explode against the walls.
And these sorts of fucktards are going to get $15/hr in a couple of years?
The economy will collapse. Civilization is doomed. You read it here first.
Ron White was wrong: I can fix this kind of stupid, but you’ve got to allow me to use a big enough hammer.
At any rate, a couple of more of these incidents, and I’m going to abandon all civility, and start going full-on As Good As It Gets on these morons, to reduce them to tears as a policy, and sport.
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In three generations, using Affirmative Action, Liberals turned America into a Kakistocracy : a system of government which is run by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous citizens.
Hope the business has a cry room.
True story from my college retail days:
Customer: is the stuff on this rack on sale?
Me: Yes ma’am, you can tell which racks are on sale based on their signs. (Points to large red 25% off sign.)
Customer: (looks at sign) So how much will be taken off?
Me: …Just like the sign says. 25%.
Customer: Are you sure that’s what those numbers mean?
Me: Pretty sure. 25% is fairly straightforward, ma’am.
Anybody want to guess the race?
Italian-Irish-Jew who is also 1/8 Cherokee?
Amazing that we have let the next generation become so stupid. We weren’t allowed out of grade 4 till we knew our times tables and now kids in grade 11 and 12 still don’t know them. Incredible to watch them struggle with all things math because of it.
Then trying to argue with the kid about closing 90% of the doors to their future elicits replies of you don’t know what you’re talking about. I guess we will be surrounded by you tube millionaires (according to the kids).
Have fun, fuckers!
Fourth grade in 1968. I really had it hard to learn those multiplication tables. Teacher called me up to her desk and was flipping flash cards at me and I couldn’t concentrate due to her miniskirt and black fishnet stockings. One of my only teachers that hadn’t started teaching before WWII.
Some dark humor, while we ride down the road to perdition.
Funny writing on a widespread sad reality.
If 1/2 the tards who get a paycheck for collecting money as part of their job description didn’t have the register calculate the correct change, they would be screwed.
How many of us collected, and made change for our paper route customers, as 12-yr. old businessmen? We knew basic accounting back in the 60’s, buying wholesale, and selling retail, going door to door, in rain, sleet, and snow, with discipline, since our wits and work ethic were pretty sharp? And dodging the occasional German Shepard or Doberman, after knocking on the door to collect? Experience.
These days, some of the young adults couldn’t reliably run a lemonade stand in Summer, and make a profit.
Bitching for $15/hr. as ‘fair’.
Don’t deserve it, dummies.
Inflation, or not.
Of course with that 15 dollar an hour minimum, I now see that fast food prices have gone up.
Many kids seem whipped, they don’t see a future. Owning a new car and a home? Looking at the prices of these items I can see why.
When ever I am able, during exercises in consumer culture, I use the ruse for rounding off my payment in cash, up or down, so I can get, say a quarter back instead of 23 cents in dimes, nickels and pennies. I am always astonished at the expressions and reactions of the retail scientists at the register.
Example: Purchases total $18.32 after tax. Even tho’ I have a $20 dollar bill showing in my hand, the younger minions always asks me to swipe or chip my debit card. I proceed to give them the $20 dollar bill and seven cents. That’s when the show starts. Irrespective of the fact that the cash register computer machine will just about always provide the solution to the mathematical equation $20.07 – $18.32 = $1.75. The look of “tilt”, like a Vegas slot machine that’s been hit by an irate gambler, never fails to show on the face of the checkout scholar. I gently remind them I need the quarters for a meter or laundry and like a good brand ambassador should, the attempt is made to process the purchase.
Laffs all around.
What the hell would these people do if the cash machine/computer did not provide a cash back (change) number, as in former, better days of the 20th century? I suspect they would have to, as suggested by the writer, take off their shoes and socks and manually count it out.
Just goes to show just how well We are making progress.
I do the same thing, the look of bewilderment on thier face is sad. Usually I tell them just punch it in and let the register do the math for you
Stopped for coffee at DorkyDonuts where a poor old man wanted more cream after tasting and since cream and sugar dispenses automatically the clerktoid with dreadlocks of another color which I hope were extensions who has to go ask how to get the man more cream and if I had not already ordered and paid for black coffees I would have walked out loudly at the site of three idiots trying to make the machine give cream with no coffee.
I can see this every day when using cash, the clerks depend on the electronic display to tell them how much change to give, we were always taught to count upwards from the amount of the sale to the money given, such as if the bill was $4.47 and they gave a ten dollar bill, you would scoop or flip out (scoop being the operative word as that’s why the till has curved fronts you morons, don’t “pick” the change out) three pennies, two quarters and a five dollar bill and count it back as “that’s $4.47, here’s 48, 49, 50, five and five makes ten. THANK YOU. And how many times do they actually say thank you, so I very politely say “YOU’RE WELCOME” when they neglect to thank me for my custom, all I get most days is a blank look before they resume looking at their smartphones. One day in a Sears store I was helped by a beautifully groomed older woman and her customer service skills and manners were so exemplary I almost cried..
PS, now why hasn’t some smart person discovered a way to hack the electronic till so when you buy something it tells the clerk to give you back the same amount you just spent..
I had one of those geniuses in the past. I went to get some ice cream to take home. I asked the genius behind the counter for a quart of ice cream. She told me there were only pint containers available. I said that would be OK just give me a quart in pints. She stared at the pint containers and the mental wheels started coming off the bus- it was evident this was going to be a challenge for her. I could have made it easy but I just stood there… and then she told me there were no quarts available for sale – just pints. I asked her for 2 pints instead and with visible relief she filled my order and told me that if I wanted to return next day they would have quarts back in stock. smh
At the university where I taught, 25% of all incoming freshman were required to take remedial courses (e.g. reading, writing, math or all three). That was 20 years ago. Today I hear that the figure is now 33%.
I have many stories. Here is one.
A student came up to me after class and asked me to sign an official looking document. I asked her the purpose of the document. She told me it was for welfare. She said it was “Proof I do be goin'” to school. I signed the document and commented that, since she was now a college student she shouldn’t be using phrases like “I do be goin'”. She sighed and replied “OK, I do be attendin'”. I said, “Well now you sound like a future scholar.” This was a remedial English reading comprehension class. To pass the final exam for the course, students were required to read three to five articles excerpted from newspapers, magazines, etc. and identify the headline, subheading, topic and main ideas of the articles. About 30% of the students failed to pass, even after an entire semester of coaching.
That was 20 years ago.
I still teach social science courses part time at the local community college. In order for students to pass I have made the final exam multiple choice, open book, open notes and the exam is taken in groups of 5 students (i.e. they can openly discuss and share answers). I tell them what questions will be on the exam ahead of time.
I still have to grade the exam on a curve in order to have the majority pass. If I fail too many students, I will simply not be hired next semester.
About 1/3 of the students are education majors (wanna be future teachers).
It sounds like you are bragging about NOT failing unqualified students.
Just so you can keep your job. To me,this disqualifies you as a teacher.
Everything in the country is a grift.
I’m an ex-HS teacher and we had to do that way or we couldn’t get a job at any other school; they talk to one another about applicants and no way would they hire a teacher that was “to hard on students” and would give the Administration some student classroom grading/passing problems.
“I have made the final exam…”
Good thing you do be teaching.
I honestly can’t imagine what business owners of retail establishments must have to put up with these days. I mean there were some slackers back in the late 70s and early 80s when I was working in that segment, but the vast majority today are beyond hope it seems. And I used to think it was a “demographic” thing, but the problem is clearly more widespread than that. I actually had an older black gentleman helping me at the Home Depot start railing on about the piss poor work ethic among his younger fellow co-workers.
My wife’s grandfather (born in the 1890s), only went as far as 2nd grade. He owned his own construction business, used to both build AND move houses (using horses and mules), kept his own books (I have seen them – great penmenship, etc.), and was a successful businessman. There are college “educated” folks who probably couldn’t manage most of his daily tasks today.
Oh so many stories to tell. Here’s one: About 30 years ago visited the few remaining oldsters on one side of the family, so our kids could see that there is such a concept known as “extended family”, since our little family was thousands of miles away from what used to be a good sized tribe. One of the distant cousins-same age as I-was running the family retail business. He had been a big hunk who played several sports, including football. He got a scholarship to Big State U. (almost always in the top 20) but there was a problem: his test scores. No problem, they put him in their prep school for a year-where he played “JV ball”-in hopes of getting his scores up enough so he could enter the real university. (Yes, that was back in the day when colleges apparently did not flaunt the rules at will like they do today). Anyway, the boy was not particularly bright. He instead went to a teachers college back home and got his degree-but no teaching certificate (there is a side story there I won’t waste any time on-you can figure that one out yourself).
He runs the family store, does everything: hires, fires, buys, sells, you know, the whole ball of wax. He told me how utterly clueless his potential register clerks were with basic arithmetic. How he had to spend a big wad of money to have his 4 registers upgraded to machines with “thinking status” because the kids could not. Of course that money could have been used elsewhere in making the business more efficient and profitable. Any yes, the other two stores the family owns had the exact same problem complete with expensive fix.
The thing that floored me was that he told me how stupid those kids are, and yet he never in all the years I had known him (we visited every 2 or 3 years) seemed to have much smarts himself. Don’t get me wrong: he is a wonderful guy, father, and husband and I would have no problem trusting him in any matter.
Other comments here mention the $15 thing; we all know what a disaster that is-rewards incompetence and is a factor in upcoming rabid inflation due to $15’s “get something for nothing” angle. As is usually my rant, it all starts with the parents, but in the case of young “adults” who cannot add correctly there is a host of other enablers who deserve to be shot: teachers, school administrators, politicians, on and on.
Jeebuz! It’s the same when I order a pint+1/2 cup of coffee. I can almost see the sheen o’stupidity descend over their eye testicles. One chick actually responded with: OK, 20 OZ it is! Guess who won my business…
1966-70 worked at McD’s – from grill to window to ass. manager. On Friday nights payday week the queue would go long on the 4 order registers. We would send out an order taker with a paper pad menu to take orders before the customer would get to the ‘window’. No inside dining back in those days. No female employees. Coffee 10 cents and free to cops.
There might be a dozen items on the orders, sometimes more. The OT might yell out a big order while in line, and would invariably write down the bill total at the bottom of the paper menu. In two seconds. And never get it wrong. I brag that customers would often ask me, a red hat manager, if the total was correct. I could look at it and in two seconds confirm it. Sometimes I would have to go item by item in front of the customer to satisfy them. After taking 1000 orders and it came to be automatic to compute.
I learned quite a bit from guys who would not attend college. And from the Mexican maintenance man and French fry specialist, he being a classmate at UC Riverside and now an LA lawyer.
Today I am grateful not to hear rubber lipped utterances at the drive through or front window from Fahir Ta’go? and his cousin Jawant Fries? I don’t sweat the change making from a machine reader.
It pains me to see poorly staffed places with worse management. However I am generally pleased with the fast food joints I dine at locally. I see much stupidity in places where you would think they would know better.
My first grade grandson’s homework tells me he is getting the essentials way earlier than I ever did.
Back in the late ’60s there really were only a handful of fast food places compared to what we see today. I have no idea where those of today find enough employees to keep their doors open.
Minimum wage ,like water, finds it’s natural level. It is at the bottom.
“Call it a sign of the times. Some British secondary schools removed analog clocks from exam rooms, relying on digital displays to help students race against time.”
“Stephanie Keenan, head of English at Ruislip High School in north-west London, tells the Telegraph that her school has installed digital clocks after agreeing that many year nine, ten and eleven students cannot tell the time with an analog clock.”
Groggy, chick throws in this brilliant comment – ‘even though they are solar lights, they still need a battery.’
Same person was confused, ‘what time is 1400?’ It took me 10 minutes to convince her that adding 2 to the number on the little hand would be the time she wanted.