r/mildlyinfuriating • u/T_THuynh • 16h ago
Infuriatig Store employee doesn't know basic math when I was trying to use my coupon
Every Wednesday this grocery store changes its weekly sales items. I would go into the store's app to clip the coupons for the hot ticket items for that week. I needed sliced bread and the coupon was for the 20oz size of a particular brand of any flavor/variety. This store always has issues with not updating their sales in their system so I would have to show the employee my clipped digital coupon and they would manually adjust it after confirming.
Well this one employee looked at the bread and said "It's the wrong size. You grabbed the 4oz size" and that's why it wasn't going through. She clearly missed the "1lb" and only looked at the "oz" number. I explained to her that it says 1lb 4oz which equals 20 oz but she wasn't getting it. Finally another employee came and adjusted it for me.
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u/KashiofWavecrest 12h ago
I have a friend in retail that said that he had a cashier didn't understand that 100 pennies was $1.00.
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u/BoomyGordo 12h ago
I currently have some one on the shift before me that cant count money to save her life. She has openly admitted this to customers. Our tills are supposed to be $100 +/- 0.50 and hers is routinely anywhere from 5 to fucking 50 over
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u/KashiofWavecrest 11h ago
I have to wonder how some of these people function. My guess is not well and relying on the grace of others.
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u/BoomyGordo 11h ago
Has to be with the help of others. Despite being there a year her skill level is still basically new hire and she routinely puts chemicals in the wrong bottles.. like bad mixes too. Refilling the vinegar bottle with bleach for example. Im sure she has some one helping her in life cause otherwise she'd have died by now.
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u/Glad-Watch3506 9h ago
Does she show up for every shift?
Because I've learned you can get away with almost anything as long as you show up consistently.
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u/MrPigeon70 10h ago
Id honestly be scared to fire her and risk them getting a job were mistakes like that write obituaries.
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u/trekqueen 7h ago
My sister heads the mental health / therapy group at a high school and she often collabs with other departments like the job placement and career path folks. She asked me the other day if I had some suggestions for skills or topics I thought might be good to cover. She has teenagers and I have one and a preteen so our kids are in the thick of it, but they tend to be outliers for knowing some of these skills better than their peers. One thing I said for sure was to count back money. I’m hearing too often that people don’t know their coins and such very well.
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u/blindtoe54 11h ago
Why is she allowed to handle money?
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u/BoomyGordo 11h ago
I've been asking my self that since her 4th week working there and its going on the 60th week
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u/HandleUnlikely2589 4h ago
Sounds like she's shortchanging customers if the till is over, so the business is profiting?
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u/Hopeful-Individual99 10h ago
Damn you only get a 50 cent buffer to be accurate when you close your till? Ours is + or - 5 dollars
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u/BoomyGordo 10h ago
i might have worded it wrong. i meant the till should have $100 with all additional dropped into the safe. im not exactly sure what the buffer on that is supposed to be, but i know what we drop has to be within +/- 5
so no, she cant even count to 100. i have no idea how over/under her drops have been since thats above my pay grade
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u/crispy_dragon88 7h ago
I had a job that required it to be exact. Anything over or under would get corporate involved. We kept extra money in an envelope to cover when it was under
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u/Calure1212 5h ago
I once did the enrolment at the school of music. One guy didn't realise that he had to pay at the time of enrolment so he went out and busked for his money. At the end of the day we were 1¢ out. The finance guy insisted we count the whole lot again not just the 1¢ pieces.
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u/eggheadslut 6h ago
I hired someone as a cashier who didn’t know the worth of each coin. She couldn’t give change because of that. And her mom was a school teacher and told me they were working on it together at home
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u/Linked1nPark 6h ago
Have you seen that classic video “Verizon Can’t Do Math” where a guy was quoted 0.002 cents per kilobyte for roaming charges but then was billed at 0.002 dollars per kilobyte, and he talks to like 3 different people at Verizon and can’t convince any of them that there’s a difference between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. Incredible.
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u/Jazzlike-Beyond-7677 5h ago
I worked with a 17 year old girl who considered herself highly intelligent and once told us that she really didn't have anything left to learn, she was very mature for her age. She thought four 20s made $100.
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u/darkenfire 16h ago
I went to Toyota for service this week and my invoice had an extra $20 charge. I spent a long time explaining it. After awhile I said, look we're agreeing there's around $40 of charges, why is the total over $60 and he looked me in the eye with a straight face and said "taxes."
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u/rocket20067 Existence is pain 15h ago edited 14h ago
In what world would there be a 50% sales(?) tax rate.
(Said 33 instead of 50 as thought the 60 was the base price)
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u/jammerb 15h ago
over 50%
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u/rocket20067 Existence is pain 15h ago
Yeah I realized that the second I saw your message. I forgot about the 40 and just thought the 60 was the starting price
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u/spiritofjon 15h ago
This isn't new, the education system in America has sucked for a long time. It must be almost 20 years ago now my wife asked the girl at subway to cut her sandwich into fourths. You would have thought she asked her to do brain surgery.
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u/aerkith 13h ago edited 9h ago
Not just America. I teach in Australia, and they don't even turn their brains on. This girl saw 4oz and just went with it. Despite the fact that she knows 4oz is lighter than that. She's seen it before. Just like I get kids in my science class tell me the temperature of the room is 2C (when it's actually 20C - the thermometer spaces the 2 and 0 either side of the graduations) They know that 2C is very cold, much colder than the room, but they just don't use any critical thinking skills to question it.
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u/WartimeHotTot 8h ago
That’s the subtle hilarity of this post. If this is the 4-oz version, then the cashier is implying that the coupon is for a package five times this size.
Show me the 20-oz loaf of bread then, Brinleigh.
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u/artsyfartsyMinion 11h ago
So many these days don't have any critical thinking skills.
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u/Calure1212 6h ago
Let me tell you about coathangers. No don't. We could be here for days but babies' clothes on children's or even an adult's coathanger and then large adult clothing on baby coathangers. Honestly, if these people can't manage to put the clothes onto coathangers how on earth do they manage to dress themselves in the mornings?
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u/N0t_a_throwawai 15h ago
I was at a deli counter not too long ago and asked for 1/3 of a pound of something to be sliced. The young deli clerk didn’t understand what that was. I literally had to tell them it was between 1/4 and 1/2, still got a blank look, then just said “until the scale says about .33 please”.
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u/WartimeHotTot 8h ago
This happens to me all the time. Literally like 50% of the time.
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u/Lafnear 9h ago
20 years ago I worked at a coffee shop and was training someone. I told her to fill a cup 3/4 full of milk and she did not know what that meant. "I'm not good with halves and quarters and stuff." This woman had a child.
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u/Reasonable-Mess3070 8h ago
Omg this reminded me one time at work I sent back a pick list that said "7.75in straws". It was returned scratched out and the guy wrote he substituted it with 7 3/4.
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u/BlueIsTheOnlyColour 13h ago
I remember a group of us trying to explain to an Oxford University mathematics student how to cut a round birthday cake into eight pieces. It took a long time until eventually he exclaimed "Of course! Four times two is eight!"
(If you know mathematicians you will not be surprised to hear he was of the "pure" variety and that he went on the get a First Class degree.)
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u/Cyberwolf71 10h ago
I asked an Arby's employee for a ham and cheese croissant.
She asked if I wanted ham on it.
I said yes.
This deeply confused her and she got really passive aggressive.
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u/Dog1andDog2andMe 11h ago
It's not the education system, it's the parenting. Parents are addicted to phones and from the beginning, pushing tablets and phones into their infant's hands instead of parenting. Parents rarely go outside with kids -- everyone is stuck inside looking at a screeh. Parents aren't reading books and aren't modeling good behaviors. Kids enter the school system without being potty trained, without knowing their parents' names, without knowing basic skills and lacking social skills. Teachers have to teach all of this and the kid goes home to be glued again to a screen. Stuck to a screen from an early age, their brains aren't developed like they should and are constantly seeking the next dopamine hit that the algorithm is going to give them.
Schools can only do so much. We can't undo all the harm that is done to kids at home.
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u/castafobe 7h ago
It's both. It's not teachers causing the issues, but administration. When teachers have no recourse their hands are tied. When we can't even have children stay back when they can't master the subject matter, it's not the teachers fault but it is the fault of the education system. It 100% starts at home, but in the past even kids with bad home lives had a small chance at success at school. Now they're just pushed through grade after grade when they're functionally illiterate.
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u/NoDonut7999 7h ago
It's neither. There have always been and always will be people with less intelligence, curiosity, or ability to reason. The places we encounter them and the things that cause them confusion are a function of the times they live in. Common activities for past generations (counting change, weighing food, doing mental arithmetic) barely happen today because they don't need to. If you struggled with those things and then didn't have to care about them, you'd quickly lose any competency you had. That happens constantly in every generation.
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u/TripsOverCarpet 5h ago
Even back in the 90s, I would often mess up a cashier with simple math and the register right in front of them to plug the number into. Total comes to $10.78, hand them $11.03, and they'd just stare in confusion.
Asked at a drive-thru once for a half dozen nuggets and got told they do not have a half dozen. (they offered 4, 6 and 10).
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u/PancakeMisery 3h ago
failures of the American school system go back much farther than the 90s, it's just gotten even worse over time. It was never that good to begin with though
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u/Mysterious-Creme8709 14h ago
I completely agree with that take BUT I can also say it's on the kids too. I'm in the american education system (it's miserable) and I understand perfectly fine how to do all the normal stuff, it's normally the kids who sit in class and don't engage and use AI on all their assignments that turn out like the person in the post.
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u/Human_Skirt6528 13h ago
It really is miserable. 2 days ago, I asked a student to fix their answer. They just added a new, equally as bad answer, to the end of their sentence. Then, they tried to fight me when it was still wrong because I apparently didn't specifically tell them to erase the old answer. I think this time and again, how have they made it this far in life without being reminded to breath in and out
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u/Love_Dogs_and_Sewing 10h ago
I think that the education system in the past 20 years is not the cause of this issue. Lots of older folks can't process mixed measurements either. When my son was born 35 years ago, there was a "pool" among my in-laws. He weighed 6 lb 14 oz. The person who bet 6 lb 10 oz won the pool even though someone else bet 7 pounds even.
The cashier made a mistake and then was nervous/flummoxed when it was called out to her. It's fair to poke fun at the error but not generalize to the whole population. There have always been people who are a bit slow on the uptake.
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u/Glad-Watch3506 9h ago
He weighed 6 lb 14 oz. The person who bet 6 lb 10 oz won the pool even though someone else bet 7 pounds even.
Price Is Right rules. You gotta be closest without going over.
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u/RelativeStranger 14h ago
Tbf if the girl had come from most other english speaking countries that may have been why.
I have two maths degrees and it would have taken me 5 or 6 seconds to parse that is the same as quarters
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u/Snelly1998 8h ago
A&W tried a third pound burger, cheaper than a quarter pounder from McDonald's, before realizing most customers thought a quarter was bigger than a third
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u/Early-Nebula-3261 9h ago edited 8h ago
In someways true in someways it’s the older folk who are the worst.
I say this as someone who started in retail right after Covid and is now a grocery manager. Companies did not pay during covid, they let all talent walk out the door in budget crunching moves.
All that’s left over is the Crowd who rode coattails on their ways up and then got thrown into position they weren’t ready for. No one knows what they are doing.
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u/evilenchiladas 8h ago
My husband works at a gas station and a different manager hired a 20 year old girl. He's watching her at the register when a guy walks up with a $1.90 total. He hands her 2 dollars. She turns around and says, "how much do I give him back?" She also later asked my husband how much a nickel was worth. Another coworker was tasked with teaching her how to make food and my husband goes back there to ask her how the new girl is doing. She said you're not gonna believe this, but she doesn't know how to spell taco. My husband is like are you fucking serious. The coworker pulls out a piece of paper from the trash and written on it was "Tako. Tacoh. Tahco" I wish I was making this shit up. This girl has a couple kids and I'm genuinely terrified for their futures.
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u/Sole__Survivor 7h ago edited 5h ago
I just had someone come into my work yesterday to order a cake for their daughters 3rd birthday. I asked her how to spell the daughters name (I always ask even for simple names because you never know how they spell it.)
She straight up said, "Hold on I gotta check, please don't tell my daughter that I don't know how to spell her name."
Edit: her name is Serenity.
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u/Calure1212 7h ago
My grandmother couldn't spell my name but that was because she was a bitch and couldn't be bothered learning which of the many variations it is, not because she was an idiot.
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u/TheRealTurinTurambar 4h ago
My dad, who I'm now no contact with, mispronounced my son's name.
It's Ashton, he pronounced it with a long A.
My son is 32 now and no one else ever had a problem, only his own Grandpa.
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u/Earth2Monkey 4h ago
I worked with a Cerenity. She was mad all the time, maybe because her parents didn't spell her name right
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u/Ok-Classroom5548 6h ago
That girl has a couple of kids at 20 and can’t spell basic words…? Sounds like she grew up in an abusive home or around neglect. Or she is that dumb and someone is taking advantage of her.
I hope that girl and her kids are okay. She is going to have a hard life.
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u/evilenchiladas 6h ago
From what I understand, she needs that job to pay child support because her baby daddy has majority custody of them. She very well could have had a rough upbringing but I do know she dropped out of school due to getting pregnant.
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u/nickalit 7h ago
Years ago I had a math teacher who said "Just memorize it, it'll be so much easier." Yes, it has been. Thank you Mr Teacher.
Of course, another advantage I had was growing up was physically handling pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and folding money. Kids who've only experienced clicking and cards are missing out on a good way to grasp fractions.
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u/SquashInternal3854 6h ago
Yep, about counting coins and bills. Same with reading an analog clock - can visually learn to count in 5's and halves , etc Very few understand analog clocks now
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u/jeckles 4h ago
Schools replacing analog clocks with digital has done an incredible disservice to their basic education. I have some younger coworkers who’ve had to learn this skill as an adult. It’s not even something I remember learning, just something I’ve always known!
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u/SquashInternal3854 4h ago
I remember at school learning by drawing a clock face on a paper plate - that one activity has several tasks/skills in it
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u/MentalMiddenHeap 10h ago
This case is pretty stupid but this can matter more than you think in other circumstances. We actually had an issue like this with Sara Lee bread when I had to process WIC checks. IDR what the actual size was, but to use 20oz as an example, if you brought me a WIC check that says 20oz Sara Lee but the package says 1 lb 4 oz then the package probably has a different UPC and wouldnt process right.
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u/CreativeName233223 5h ago
Is there not a process to override in cases like that? They brought you what WIC said to bring. It is the way your system is set up that is wrong, not what they brought.
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u/Suspicious-Side-1638 10h ago
All the new kids we hire at our grocery store we’ve been having to teach how much each coin and bill is worth, they are from the digital age with tap on your phone or cards only in the house none of them have touched money before it’s crazy
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u/OutrageousEvent00 9h ago
I think we’ve all heard the story about someone getting the cops called on them for using a $2 bill because the cashier thought it was fake money. I really hope that’s an urban legend. I wonder if the self checkouts even know what a Susan B. is.
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u/clintj1975 8h ago
I don't remember our register I used in the 90s having a spot for half dollars, let alone dollar coins. We had someone pay with 5 sequential numbered $2 bills once and I asked if the boss if I could buy them out of the register for a 10 since we didn't have a spot other than sticking them under the money tray with the 100s.
I've still got those $2 bills. I know they're only worth 2 dollars, but the fact they were sequentially serial numbered activated my inner geek.
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u/Ebonhearth_Druid 8h ago
Some strips clubs (at least in my area) will stock their atms with $2 bills and I've noticed they tend to be sequential. My theory is that because the $2 bill is so rarely used, they have to get them fresh and most of the bills have never been in circulation yet.
Not sure why they do it, I just know it's a thing lol
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u/Jumpy-Confection632 8h ago
I didn't know that was a thing, but I assume it's so they leave those $2 instead of singles, immediately doubling whatever tips they were gonna give.
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u/OutrageousEvent00 7h ago
All the registers I’ve ever used had five spaces for coins. Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, Quarters, and the “whatever else” spot for everything else including paper clips and rubber bands.
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u/ShadowCVL 9h ago
Unfortunately it’s not an urban legend, I have had to argue with people and show them the government site proof it’s real before. I wasn’t spending it but was in line behind someone trying to spend one.
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u/SignificantApricot69 8h ago
What about a Sacagewea (sp?) dollar? For awhile that was actually the official change given at the post office and other vending machines. I ended up with a bunch around 2000. Remember one time I ordered pizza delivery online and paid with card but preferred to always tip cash. I made a big effort to explain to people that these were real $1 coins and not quarters or fake money.
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u/BlueFuzzyCrocs 8h ago
Same thing with Susan Bs. A lot of clueless people standing behind some of those registers
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u/Dylkill99 9h ago
As someone in their late 20s who has seen a $2 bill before I won't be surprised if someone my age assumed it was fake
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u/Bebinn 8h ago
The $2 bill thing happened in my city. I was not very surprised. Some cashiers are dumb as rocks.
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u/angie456 8h ago
A few years ago I went to the public library to print something off and needed change. Their change machine gave me back change for my $5 in quarters and half dollars. It was impossible to use them because no one believed they were real. Even the teller at my bank said it would be a whole process to swap them out. They would need to be sent off and authenticated. I just gave up and kept some and gave the rest to my younger cousins and neighborhood kids.
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u/tigervault 8h ago
I request $2’s at my bank because I love tipping with them. I’ve had a bunch of people say they’ve heard of them but never actually seen one in person.
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u/Acrobatic-Dot-6273 8h ago
I am in my mid thirties. I went to a local pizza place, ordered a pizza and bread sticks. They call me up, it's 34 dollars. I hand this 18(?) year old a fifty. He just looks at me. Several long seconds go by. Then he says, I don't know what to do with this. I'm like, then why are you working the register? He wanders away with my money, comes back with Tim. Tim has grey hair. Tim opens the register, counts out my change. I take my change and my food and leave, feeling so old.
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u/ShadowCVL 9h ago
A very very long time ago one of my part time jobs was at a movie theater, started off in concessions. Our point of sale system was a glorified calculator and tally sheet. It had 3 buttons for popcorn sizes, 3 for drink sizes, 3 for candy (one per shelf), and one for the kids combo. Then the regular stuff where you entered the amount tendered and all that.
I would punch in the order and hit total, as soon as the customer handed me money ide just hit the exact cash button open the drawer (it was a literal counter top drawer no spring or anything) and give them their change. This befuddled everyone there except the manager who was in his 40s at the time. How could someone do the math in their head that easily. Meanwhile others would have to enter the cash and count it out. I was only “off” on my count one time and it was because 2 coins stuck together when I was closing down.
3 decades later and I’ve not seen a cashier able to handle cash or understand measurements in years, and that scares me. What do these people do when their phone breaks or they don’t have the internet available to know 16 ounces is a pound?
This post definitely infuriates me.
I know I am old but this problem existed before the internet was everywhere, it’s gotten SO much worse!
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u/Suspicious-Side-1638 9h ago
It’s on the parents for not teaching, but it’s a lot on everyone. We voted for this as a country and as a society we have been keeping it doing down hill. The stuff they don’t teach in school anymore amazes me but with defunding’s and teachers having to give into parents and just passing kids like they do now it’s insane just cause we don’t wanna hurt someone’s feelings or have to deal with an angry parent. And before anyone gets overly political, it’s not the red side or the blue side. It’s both as a society we’ve gone this way.
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u/Melodic-Advice9930 8h ago
I had a new hire who we had this problem with.
And then I had to fire him because he botched a cashapp money upload and somehow gave a customer $350 twice. They only paid once.
He hit cash instead of clear when trying to input the amount of money the customer gave him, and somehow didn’t understand that the drawer popping and a receipt printing meant the transaction went through.
It also wasn’t a regular of mine and the person never came back so his drawer was short $350 at the end of the night. And then he looked shocked when I fired him, and his dad came in to ask me for clarification on why his 19 year old was fired.
It’s been months and the boy still tried to message me just yesterday to ask me about a paystub when I’ve told him multiple times that once you are terminated with the company, the only person who can help you or has access to your information is HR.
I’m tired boss.
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u/WittyFix6553 5h ago
At a certain point we need to have at least a little bit of understanding, and not be mad at people for not knowing things they’ve never needed or experienced.
I remember my grandfather being shocked and offended that I didn’t know how to use a slide rule.
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u/Awdayshus 8h ago
I was depressed for the future one day when I the grocery store cash register screen. When they put in how much cash I gave them, the screen had a top down view of the drawer. There was a number over each denomination of coin and bill so they'd know how much change to give.
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u/sha_lyn68 9h ago
Had that problem years ago at Publix I think it was trying to explain that 64 Oz and half a gallon was the same thing. The sale paper I believe describe the ice cream as half gallon but the packaging only said 64 Oz. He kept arguing with me that I grabbed the wrong ice cream
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u/420_wallabyway 9h ago
My coworkers: how many oz are in a cup? Me: 8 My coworkers: so how many oz is a quarter cup? Me: ...............2
I understand math can be hard but come on
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u/PizzaMan332 7h ago
It's even worse when someone gives additional change after they put it in the pos, even if it 2 cents.
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u/thisremindsmeofbacon 7h ago
That actually get though because you're put on the spot and it breaks the rhythm - it could be as simple as 1+1 but because you have to access a different part of your brain than you're currently using, and because there's time pressure and often judgement then it becomes hard. Not to do with the math at all
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u/eggheadslut 6h ago
I went to a grocery store to get sliced deli meat. I asked for 1/3 of a pound. The woman slicing the meat could not figure out how much that was!! I left with 1/2 pound because she simply didn’t know how to measure out 1/3 of a pound
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u/Agent7619 6h ago
A&W 1/3lb burger fiasco.
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u/IowaSmoker2072 5h ago
My son managed a store that sold garage door openers. He could not convince a customer that the three quarter horse motor had more power than the half horse.
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u/Jazzlike-Beyond-7677 5h ago
I haven't worked customer service in around 15 years, but I've had so many permutations of this conversation in my life that I can still feel vicarious frustration deep in my bones from reading this.
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u/SandySockShoes 4h ago
1/3 lb is 5.333 oz so it isn’t a clean number to do in your head, but that is literally her job.
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u/wordyfard 4h ago
At every deli counter I've ever been to, it's not even that much mental math, because the display reads in pounds. So they'd just be looking for 0.333 pounds.
And I've had the exact same problem trying to explain this to a deli counter worker who didn't know any of it and couldn't understand any of it.
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u/nothingatlast 5h ago
Speaking as someone who once did the whole deli meat thing, it breaks my brain that someone couldn't figure that out.
But I'm also the dork that made a game out of measuring it visually as well. I was usually pretty good at it unless it was for somebody that liked their stuff cut thick. That always threw me off.
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u/engunneer2 5h ago
I worked in a grocery store deli in college and had a customer ask for half a pound of something, then was confused when I gave him 0.50 pounds. Turned out he was expecting 0.30, because he was thinking about half an hour being 30 minutes. He eventually realized he actually wanted half a pound and everything was fine, but there was a bit of confusion while we worked out why he was unhappy.
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u/nothingatlast 4h ago
At least he had some kind of logic to it, incorrect though it was. He gets partial credit.
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u/Toyotabedzrocksc 7h ago
It would be nice if a system of measurement existed that didn't reuse names across weight and volume measurements.
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u/No-Entertainer-840 7h ago
I was comparing Halloween candy prices at the store and trying to get an idea of price by weight. Some bags used Kg, some pounds with decimals, others pounds & oz. They love to obscure these things to keep consumers uninformed. If only we still had a consumer protection agency with the power to do anything..
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u/QuentinEichenauer 5h ago
I had a Home Depot employee not know what an octagon was. "Like a Stop sign" "So a circle with flat edges?"
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u/owningxylophone 10h ago
Seems odd to list it in lbs & oz on the packing and then have your coupon be for just the oz weight… like why? Just have your coupons state the same size listed on the packaging.
(To add I’m in the UK so this is totally an outsiders perspective)
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u/LunaticMuse 12h ago
I kind of get this... sort of, and while I don't argue that people are generally getting dumber, I had to laugh.
I have dyscalculia -- it's like dyslexia, but for math. To the point where I have trouble writing down phone numbers, or addresses in the right order, some clocks are very hard to read. (I'm a freelance writer, and frequently have to number lists. Like... 1-20. It's a running joke that I get it wrong.) It wasn't that long ago that I desperately needed a new job, and the only thing I landed? Bank teller.
Yep: In charge of tens of thousands of dollars, counting out cash, inputing all kinds of numbers. That was me! I had to come up with a shorthand for numbers and counting... yea, it's a long, stupid, and boring story, lol. But this made me laugh, because it's something I would absolutely do.
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u/AmaranthAbixxx 9h ago
Yeah, as someone who also has dyscalculia, I found this weirdly relateable. I would definitely make this mistake too, haha.
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u/Logical_Strategy_707 8h ago
I also have dyscalcula and I struggle with this stuff too. I would have discreetly googled how many Oz in a lb though. Like I know what I dont know. Sounds like you do too.
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u/TehBIGrat 11h ago
I find that fascinating, is it possible to give an example of your solution to mixing up numbers?
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u/SkeletalMew 5h ago
I have dyscalculia, too!! I always describe it to people as stacking cups, where the more cups I stack, the more I lose. Once I've stacked anywhere from 3-5 cups, any new cup causes a bottom cup to disappear. So now instead of cups, consider the steps of any math equation. The more complicated the equation, the more impossible it is for me to solve. My brain quite literally cannot hold onto it. But people often misjudge this because they forget how many steps are in "simple" equations. Solve 24x7. Count the steps. It's tough lol. I also experience number flipping, where maybe instead of 16456 I write 16546. It happens most often with longer strings of numbers, so I have to be very careful and triple check, especially phone numbers. My dyscalculia was so severe that I was approved to take a substitute course for my final math requirement in college. Thanks for bringing dyscalculia up because it's still not talked about nearly as much as dyslexia, and it deserves to be known!!
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u/MalditoAlgoritmo 16h ago
Another reason why the metric system is superior
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u/koolman2 15h ago
I looked at this, saw the 1 lb 4 oz but didn't relize that it was 20 oz until I saw the 567 g. I live in the US and heavily prefer metric.
Had I given it any thought I would have realized it was 20 oz, but why does the exact same weight have so many different ways to write it?!
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u/ShoddyAsparagus3186 9h ago
The problem here is mixing units which metric helps with but doesn't solve.
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u/SikatSikat 11h ago
Regular: $9.99 Open Box Price: $.99
So the box was missing some of the 12 bars, the cashier insisted on charging me 99 cents for each. I said, so its $11.88 for 12 because the box is open but $9.99 if undamaged? She insisted that's what it meant.
I just gave up on that
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u/OftTopic 9h ago
I can imagine this was a poorly written pricing sign. The store may have intended that a single item was $.99, and offered a quantity discount when buying a full case of 12.
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u/00000000005 7h ago
Yeah, exactly that. Otherwise, that would be an insane deal and people would just be incentivized to damage boxes for that price.
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u/brmoser 6h ago
Teacher and school admin here and I can tell you, despite some protestations on Facebook, schools do still teach money (with tons of story problems) in school! I imagine that kids still learn it in elementary roughly as well as previous generations learned the same lessons.
But the society the current kids actually live in provides a ton less practice for those skills in real life.
Not sure anyone is making an argument that moving more and more toward a cashless society is either a good or bad thing, but it is largely the reason that kids, when confronted by the uncommon problem, seem like they never learned it.
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u/Pudix20 2h ago
There’s also an issue with critical thinking and a level of rigidity with the logic. This is not perceived. This is coming from the oversimplification of everything. I hate to use this example because talking about money, but it’s a good one.
If you get exactly $20 change, and say can I just get 4 $5 bills, there’s like this system break that happens to some people. “The machine says $20.”
And outside of the logistics of change and maybe they only have so many of X bill to give out etc. I’m discussing the lack of the ability to apply any thought. Like in OP’s example of the 20 oz vs. 1lb 4 oz.
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u/Classic-End6768 4h ago
I’ve been wondering about this, as a cashier at a corner market. I’ll tell a kid the total is $4.85, and they’ll respond, “I only have $5.” I’ll have kids that tell me to “keep the change” when it’s like 80 cents. There was one maybe preteen who didn’t know the value of any coins.
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u/Moleypeg 9h ago
I asked the deli counter employee for 1/3 lb of sliced cheese. He looked panicked and cut 3/4 lb for me.
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u/Shakenbakess 6h ago
I would have asked her if she's ever seen a loaf of bread that was 5 times the size of that loaf for sale
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u/Flat-Structure-7472 16h ago
There are 16 ounces in a pound? What a weird way measurement.
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u/Hdjbbdjfjjsl 15h ago
It came from medieval England trading, it was so goods could be split between halves, quarters, and eigths.
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u/nikhkin 15h ago
Logical at the time, but not particularly useful in the modern day.
Base-10 systems are much more convenient.
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u/portmandues 13h ago
Not necessarily. Base 10 is mostly a consequence of it being easily countable on 10 fingers. Other cultures have adopted different numerical systems, some of which are still in standard use like time keeping. The metric system just keeps the basis consistent. We could just as easily all get along with hexadecimal and 16 oz = 1 lb would feel completely natural.
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u/rufiohProbably 11h ago
The issue is there’s 14 lbs in a stone
And 160 stone in an imperial ton, vs 142 stone 12lb in a US ton
This is all incredibly inconsistent between different levels of measurement.
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u/AdhesiveSeaMonkey 14h ago
My cat gets 50 rods to the hog’s head and that’s just the ways I like it!!!
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u/runs-for-donuts 5h ago
This happened to me with the exact same measurements! Anyone who says it’s an education issue is wrong, because that worker had decades on me.
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u/cola-cats 4h ago
it definitely still could be an education issue, you never know what their education was like
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u/SquirrelSuspicious 4h ago
From the generation that thought a 1/3 lb burger was smaller than a 1/4 lb burger
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u/sglewis 8h ago
Grabbed a box of protein bars from the clearance area in my supermarket. They were labeled 2x$8.79. The register didn’t recognize the bar code at self check out so I called an employee over.
I saw fear. Fear and panic. Then she raised her arm and said “hey siri what is half of 8.79?”
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u/EmptyHandle6593 6h ago
You should understand that this isn’t an indictment of her generation. Some people freeze up when they see numbers that aren’t easily divisible and don’t think to add a penny to make it easier.
Instead of being judgmental about it have some empathy. Not everyone’s thought processes are the same.
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u/Logically_Insane 6h ago
I worked at a special needs high school; there were kids who were severely intellectually impaired, but still had normal language and conversational skills, could hold down jobs at local shops. It would take a decent amount of talking to realize they had troubles.
That employee could be, and probably is, a typical person who wasn’t comfortable with the math. But there is a small chance they are legitimately mentally disabled and used their technology to cover. After my experience I’m never willing to play the odds.
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u/sglewis 3h ago
Definitely not an indictment of her generation. I didn’t even mention her apparent age. I also was very nice to her. It’s still mildly infuriating that 1) the bar code wasn’t active in their system, 2) it took 5 minutes to get someone to assist, and 3) the math wasn’t great.
Taking out #3 doesn’t change my mild aggravation here.
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u/soyboysnowflake 6h ago
If this was me as a retail worker it wouldn’t be the math that stumped me, it’s what to do with half a penny
Like 4.39 or 4.40 would both feel like wrong answers because I’m a little too on the spectrum for that
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u/girlwhoweighted 6h ago
I can't do math in front of someone waiting. That's just too much pressure. And I know my brain mathing is slow and I feel pressured to rush.
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u/CaitieLou_52 5h ago
Personally, I don't go to the grocery store to be impressed by the employee's mental math skills. I go to buy stuff.
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u/onikaroshi 7h ago
As someone who has been through and excelled in many high level math courses, sometimes you throw simple math and me and my brain will just break for some reason now lol.
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u/Visible_Pair3017 10h ago
Another win for metric
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u/Hot_Seaweed_4221 9h ago
Right? Using two different units to get the total weight is clearly confusing. the coupon being in oz and bread in pound make me think that there is not even a consensus on the mesure to use for bread.
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u/mrknowitall51761 7h ago
I got a 77$ chain at a store for 7.70 because the cashier didnt know math and wouldnt listen even though I pointed out her error.
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u/D3ChaosOTNight 12h ago
How old was this person? I learned 16 oz was 1 lb bc I worked at a candy store in my late teens. I didnt get that from the school system.. and if I did, I never used it for years. Also, despite being great at math in a school environment, I was the idiot who couldnt figure the change math out on the spot the first time when someone gave me 17 cents after I rung up a $10 for a purchased that was $6.67. I just didnt learn it properly. I was embarrassed for that first transaction and then it was smooth sailing from there.
I never told the customer they were wrong because I just claim stupidity. Idk. I guess I dont have that arrogance in me. I'm also super antisocial 🤣
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u/miffet80 8h ago
You're the first comment I've gotten to in this thread that admits the lbs/oz thing is not something you may have known and didn't learn in school.
I am not American and even though we do use lbs here informally occasionally, it's just something I never learned and never use. If you'd asked me yesterday with a gun to my head how many oz were in a lb I'm not sure I'd have gotten it right lol.
But then, I don't work in an American grocery store!
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u/DagamarVanderk 4h ago
To be fair, I’m American and trying to remember the conversion from pounds to ounces (both a weight and a volume for some reason) to cups to quarts to pints is a pain in the ass.
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u/Sinnakins 2h ago
I always had a hard time remembering, until I could finally get into my head that weight is twice volume. As for the rest, two cups is a pint, two pints is a quart, and quart is quarter-gallon. From there, it was simple math. It got easier when I realised sixteen tablespoons was a cup, to go with sixteen ounces is a pound. Never mind that a tablespoon is half an ounce. Why couldn't we just go metric??
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u/Financial_Exergy 7h ago
Maybe she was from a country that uses metric system and only uses grams. Seeing 2 different units for measuring is confusing
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u/Massive_Squirrel7733 4h ago
I was at a deli and ordered a side of Mac salad “We sell it by the pound… how about a half pound?” No, I said, that’s too much for a side. And a quarter pound is only 4 oz… “How about 3/8 of a pound?”
Yeah, he couldn’t do 3/8 pound because it was a digital scale.
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u/Liberwolf 4h ago
I may have done the math wrong but wouldn't that just be 6 ounces of mac and cheese?
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u/Accomplished-House28 3h ago
Commercial scales don't measure in ounces. They use decimal pounds.
Should have been 0.375 lb. Though to be fair, that's a weird level of precision for deli mac & cheese.
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u/Appropriate_Donut590 14h ago
Was at a hometown bakery one time trying to split a nice fat loaf with some friends. Asked the employee to cut it into thirds and they started by slicing it in half.
My friend and I took the smaller portions and gave our third the big half lol.
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u/Panda-Head 5h ago
I missed that too at first, but I was looking at oz & g thinking it wasn't adding up, then couldn't remember how many so had to look it up. 16oz in a lb, +4, =20. I would have checked it and showed her.
Everyone's different. Maybe she's got dyscalculia. It's like dyslexia but for numbers. Or maybe she just froze up.
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u/Round-Primary-652 3h ago
Honestly. It pays to be patient with others because not everyone sees what you do.
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u/nikhkin 15h ago
Am I supposed to know there are 16 ounces in a pound?
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u/AdhesiveSeaMonkey 14h ago
If you live in the states, then yes…. Yes you are. Not because it’s a good system, but it’s the one we use.
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u/N0t_a_throwawai 15h ago
If you’re in the US, yes. And that there are 8 fluid ounces in a cup.
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u/Quirky-Associate-437 8h ago
In the US, we are taught and should function with both metric and US Standard (or whatever they call it, I think it’s based on Imperial and originally from England). Anyways it seems horrifying that people aren’t able to process it correctly.
Now, I could see something like using a metric tape measure for measuring out things as that’s far easier than dealing with the fractions from the standard system.
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u/anneg1312 8h ago
To be fair that isn’t just basic math, it’s measurement conversion. That said, your store sounds challenging.
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u/Far-Homework9435 2h ago
in their defense i don’t know off the top of my head how many oz are in a lb… i’d have to look it up but tbh if someone told me 1lb 4oz equaled 20oz i’d just go with it because as far as i know they’re right and i don’t get paid enough to check lol
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u/RedReaper666YT 2h ago
Any stoner will know this instantly. 16 ounces to a pound, 28 grams to an ounce
Yes, I absolutely just outed my love for joints
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u/iceboxmi 16h ago
If that’s 4oz, imagine what the 20oz bread would look like.