I do sometimes wonder what children are taught in schools these days. When I look at the names of subjects students take in high school, it appears that education has greatly improved since I was in school. But then I look at the results: students (and sometimes teachers) who can barely read and write and many who seem to be clueless when it comes to basic math skills necessary for everyday life.
I won't here detail my complaints on a lack of English skills, though some would be shocked if I reprinted, without editing, the submissions I receive from educators. Instead, I'll focus on something I notice almost every time I go to the store and make a purchase using that antiquated form of money called cash.
Just last week I went to the local grocery store to buy an item I needed to complete supper, a bag of brown rice. While I was there, I decided to buy my wife some roses because it was Valentines Day and I hadn't bought her flowers for a while. My total was, if I recall correctly, $22.58. I handed the young cashier $30 in cash, and that's when the trouble began. He mistakenly entered the wrong amount tendered, which meant he would have to figure out my change without the aid of the computerized cash register. Anyway, I had to stop him because he gave me $6 back and the wrong amount of change.
I suppose he could have done a simple math problem on paper to know how much to give me in change, but most young people don't seem to know how to work with numbers on paper. At another store when the same thing happened, the cashier took out her phone and did the math on her calculator app so she would know how much change to plop into my hand. One time, I was in line to buy just two items when the power went out. No one, it seems, knew how to figure sales tax and add it to the amount without a pre-programmed cash register to do all the math.
Anyway, last week I saw the opportunity to give a basic math and cashiering lesson I had learned years ago -- the math I learned in school and the cashiering method I learned when I started working in a drive-through dairy store in southern California at the age of 15.
Yes, we could work at a younger age back then, and I had to work to help pay for school. Prior to that, I ran three paper routes every evening and on Sunday mornings to earn money, part of which went to pay for school expenses. And for any young person reading this who works in a store which also happens to sell beer, I also could sell beer at the age of 15; I didn't have to summon an older manager to complete the transaction. We just weren't allowed to buy it or possess it outside the home until we were 21. A lot has changed since the early 1970s.
But, back to the modern era, I explained to the store clerk how we used to make change in the days when a person had to enter the item amounts into a mechanical cash register, figure the sales tax and add it and then make change without any machine to tell you how much change to give back to the customer.
"What you do," I told him, "is simply count it back. I gave you $30 and the amount owed is $22.58. All you have to do is take change from the cash drawer counting back up from $22.58 to $30. Two pennies makes it $22.60, another 40 cents makes it $23. Two ones make it $25, and a $5 makes it $30. Then count it back to me, to make sure you got it right."
Well, I don't know if the brief lesson made any sense to someone living in the computer and calculator age, but I am somewhat shocked that the cashiers are not taught to count back change when they are trained. You would at least think counting back change would be a tool used to prevent mistakes, but it seems to be a lost practice. If you buy something with cash, the cashier enters the amount tendered, looks to see how much to give back and then plops a pile of bills and change into the customer's hand. It seems like a recipe for mistakes and not balancing at the end of the day.
That reminds me of another thing from way back in the '70s. At the end of the shift, our cash register receipts had to balance to the penny and usually did -- except after armed robberies, which also happened a few more times than I liked, but that's another story. I could also tell you about the short-changing tricks people used to try when we were really busy.
I have never tried to short change an unwitting cashier (and wouldn't), but I do at times test cashiers a bit just to see if they know what they are doing. Sometimes I'll hand the cashier a $10 or $20 and then, after they've entered that into the cash register, give them a little more change to make the change-making easier.
For example, if the sale amount is $1.81 and I hand the cashier a $10, then I'll dig in my pocket and hand the cashier another 6 cents. You would think the cashiers would be appreciative of my kindness, but most look at me with this puzzled look which tells me they wonder what on earth I am doing when I hand them another nickel and penny.
I am hopeful that most of you know why but, if you don't, it is so they can just give me $8 and one quarter back and not have to give me the four pennies, a dime and a nickel. It makes things easier, but for some it leads to bewilderment.
So, I'm wondering if our students have any idea how to balance a checkbook and keep from spending more than they have deposited. Bank statements used to come in the mail only once a month and keeping track of deposits and expenditures was pretty important. Maybe that's what online banking and overdraft protection is for these days -- you don't have to know how to do basic math.
Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 02/22/2017