Well this might be promising...

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bob Henson:

I used to get the reverse bit of fun when working in my pharmacy. I
would often add up the price of several items in my head and ring up the
total on the till as it was much quicker. The older customers didn't
even notice, but the teenagers used to stare at me as though I had just
done something magical and against the laws of nature. One or two
actually asked me how I did it. Whilst laughing internally, I used to
explain to them with a straight face, and in the least patronising
manner I could muster, what I had done. I was even asked why they were
no longer taught to do it in school - I couldn't answer that without a
long political and sociological diatribe, so I just said I really didn't
know.

My son-in-law had to hire somebody to fill a job testing financial
software.

He decided that one of the litmus tests was whether or not the applicant
could demonstrate an understanding of compound interest.

He was interviewing *only* college graduates.

He had to interview 27 applicants before he found a college graduate
that could demonstrate an understanding of compound interest.

Call me simplistic, but I think this relates somehow to the
fiscal/monetary mess that the USA is in today - and does not bode well
for the future.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Simple. It's what one wants to do to unwanted Windows 8 discs before
setting fire to them.

They already stink. Why make them worse?

 

[Ken Blake]

Hi, Ken.

I get it! If I measure it as 100.00, it might actually be 100.001 (or
99.995 or 100.004). Your 100.000 removes those possibilities; therefore, it
is more precise. But the actual length still might be 100.0001; another
digit of precision would reveal that.

Precisely? ;^}

Exactly right!

Ken

 

[Ken Blake]

Maybe. But if I measure it as 100.0001, that is very precise. However,
the actual length is 97.3022, so it is not at all accurate.

I'm afraid you missed the first phrase of the first sentence of what I
wrote: "If something is 100 inches long ..."

 

[SC Tom]

Per Bob Henson:

My son-in-law had to hire somebody to fill a job testing financial
software.

He decided that one of the litmus tests was whether or not the applicant
could demonstrate an understanding of compound interest.

He was interviewing *only* college graduates.

He had to interview 27 applicants before he found a college graduate
that could demonstrate an understanding of compound interest.

Call me simplistic, but I think this relates somehow to the
fiscal/monetary mess that the USA is in today - and does not bode well
for the future.

Even though I'm not a college grad, I have had some advanced education, and
consider myself of average or slightly above average intelligence, but I
have to tell you, compound interest kicked my ass in school. Trig, geometry
(plane and solid), even introductory calculus, no problem. But I just never
could grasp the compound interest concept. That was ok though since I never
had a need for it, but trig certainly came in handy for one of my careers as
a machinist.

I don't care if I was qualified in every other way for your S-I-L's job,
that probably would have kept me from applying for the position. In all
honesty, I haven't even looked at the subject since high school (class of
'64), so it's definitely been a while

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I'm afraid you missed the first phrase of the first sentence of what I
wrote: "If something is 100 inches long ..."

You are precisely accurate there.

You're right, I indeed missed that, and there's no excuse - but I still
felt free to give the above flippant response

 

[Ken Blake]

You are precisely accurate there.

You're right, I indeed missed that, and there's no excuse - but I still
felt free to give the above flippant response

LOL! It's OK with me.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Gene E. Bloch wrote: []

[1] Although I *do* speak a vaguely related language

We'uns talk Merkin.

As long as you don't talk through it, or are (like the aptly-named
president Bush!) proud to be one.

(See

- if you've got six
minutes to spare.)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

One of my favorite experiences (a few years ago now) was when I bought
10 items at $1.29 each, and the clerk wrote the numbers on a piece of
paper and computed the result by long multiplication:

1.29
x10

LOL!

But I'm glad to hear he got the correct answer.

Ken

Now that you bring it up, I'm not so sure

No, of course he did. If he had gotten it wrong, I can't imagine that I
would forget it...

I share whoever it was's delight that at least he knew how to _do_ long
multiplication.

Here (UK), he'd probably just ring it up ten times on the cash register.
[And, I think, in some places, his employer would actually want him to
do so )-:.]

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I'm worse than you. I'll give them $5.27 and expect $1.50 change.

But in truth, I stopped doing that sort of thing. Easy for me, mind
boggling for the clerk.

Likewise. The confusion it causes more often wastes more time than the
potential saving in time.

 

[Char Jackson]

Likewise. The confusion it causes more often wastes more time than the
potential saving in time.

I wouldn't expect to see any confusion. Virtually every business uses a cash
register, so all the cashier has to do after ringing up the total is enter
the amount tendered. The cash register tells them how much change to make.

Of course, this over-reliance on the cash register can bring it's own
troubles, but confusion should never be one of them.

 

[Char Jackson]

I used to get the reverse bit of fun when working in my pharmacy. I
would often add up the price of several items in my head and ring up the
total on the till as it was much quicker.

A receipt that only showed the total paid would be useless, no? I'd simply
hand it back to you and ask you to do it right.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:18:44 -0400, (PeteCresswell) wrote: []
Call me a closet sadist, but I think I actually get some gratification
out of the momentary panic that crosses the occasional cash register
operator's face after they ring up , say, a $3.77 purchase and I tender
a five-dollar bill and seventy-seven cents.

I'm worse than you. I'll give them $5.27 and expect $1.50 change.

But in truth, I stopped doing that sort of thing. Easy for me, mind
boggling for the clerk.

Likewise. The confusion it causes more often wastes more time than the
potential saving in time.

I wouldn't expect to see any confusion. Virtually every business uses a cash
register, so all the cashier has to do after ringing up the total is enter
the amount tendered. The cash register tells them how much change to make.

True. But it still does. I think they're so used to just being handed a
note (or the exact amount), that when someone hands them a note and some
change - where the note itself is more than the amount required - it
flummoxes them for a moment. Often they just take the note anyway and
"make change".

Of course, this over-reliance on the cash register can bring it's own
troubles, but confusion should never be one of them.

Remember that those in such positions are not always the brightest, and
are moderately easily confused. (This is not meant as a criticism, and
is certainly not always the case.)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

On 19/04/2013 1:18 AM, (PeteCresswell) wrote: []

Call me a closet sadist, but I think I actually get some gratification
out of the momentary panic that crosses the occasional cash register
operator's face after they ring up , say, a $3.77 purchase and I tender
a five-dollar bill and seventy-seven cents.

I used to get the reverse bit of fun when working in my pharmacy. I
would often add up the price of several items in my head and ring up the
total on the till as it was much quicker.

A receipt that only showed the total paid would be useless, no? I'd simply
hand it back to you and ask you to do it right.

Surely the sort of register Bob is talking about - where it is quicker
to add mentally - isn't the modern bar-code type, where the receipt
shows what the purchases are: thus even if he'd put the individual
prices in, your receipt would only show a series of prices. And I
suspect he's talking of a situation where no receipt is offered at all
anyway.

 

[Bob Henson]

A receipt that only showed the total paid would be useless, no? I'd simply
hand it back to you and ask you to do it right.

And we would write you one out. If you were really that picky, we could
paint you a pretty picture on it

We didn't even bother giving people a receipt unless they asked for one
- otherwise they all finished up in a pile on the pharmacy floor whence
they were thrown by the customers. When I started in pharmacy and for
many years afterwards, we had a wooden drawer under the counter with the
cash in and that was it. There was no huge waste of paper and resources
giving receipts - if one was, very rarely, requested we wrote one out in
a receipt book kept for the purpose, but rarely used. We didn't have to
cut down millions of trees for the paper and use umpteen gallons of oil
for the ink just to satisfy a craving for completely unnecessary
paperwork as happens now, we were much more "green" in those days. And
better off.

 

[SC Tom]

And we would write you one out. If you were really that picky, we could
paint you a pretty picture on it

We didn't even bother giving people a receipt unless they asked for one
- otherwise they all finished up in a pile on the pharmacy floor whence
they were thrown by the customers. When I started in pharmacy and for
many years afterwards, we had a wooden drawer under the counter with the
cash in and that was it. There was no huge waste of paper and resources
giving receipts - if one was, very rarely, requested we wrote one out in
a receipt book kept for the purpose, but rarely used. We didn't have to
cut down millions of trees for the paper and use umpteen gallons of oil
for the ink just to satisfy a craving for completely unnecessary
paperwork as happens now, we were much more "green" in those days. And
better off.

I guess that's all well and good . . . if you're selling Christmas trees
All my trips to the pharmacy require me to have an itemized receipt for
insurance purposes. If I don't provide one, I don't get reimbursed, so you
can bet big money that I'll have one before I leave.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Char Jackson:

I wouldn't expect to see any confusion. Virtually every business uses a cash
register, so all the cashier has to do after ringing up the total is enter
the amount tendered. The cash register tells them how much change to make.

The trick being to tender the extra seventy-seven cents *after* the have
doen their entry...

 

[Bob Henson]

I guess that's all well and good . . . if you're selling Christmas trees
All my trips to the pharmacy require me to have an itemized receipt for
insurance purposes. If I don't provide one, I don't get reimbursed, so you
can bet big money that I'll have one before I leave.

As that doesn't happen in the UK (we don't need health insurance) it's not
a problem. If anyone requests a receipt, they can have one - but they are
very rarely needed, and therefore just waste time and money.

 

[Ken Blake]

I wouldn't expect to see any confusion. Virtually every business uses a cash
register, so all the cashier has to do after ringing up the total is enter
the amount tendered. The cash register tells them how much change to make.

I never use cash. I pay for everything with a credit card because I
want the airline mileage I get with it. But I never carry a credit
balance; I pay the bill in full every month.

 

[Mellowed]

As that doesn't happen in the UK (we don't need health insurance) it's not
a problem. If anyone requests a receipt, they can have one - but they are
very rarely needed, and therefore just waste time and money.

You do have health insurance. It is just pre-paid through taxes. Obama
wants us to have the same thing. If looks like he is going to get it.