Remember when cashiers had to actually ring up an item?

Did you know that thew fast food industry has helped dumb down our already not too bright kids by putting pictures of the food on the register keys instead of numbers so that they can learn how to count correctly and make change. I had a manager of a Burger king tell me that she hated that because the kids that work there for a long enough time actually forget how to make change in their heads because their minds become lazy. I worked in a dime store for awhile growing up and we had to read prices and make change mentally, no pictures of items just price tags....how sad for the kids today!

Jersey girl asked a good question here, what do you all think of what they are NOT teaching the kids today? Doesn't this irritate anyone? At Jack-In-the-Box the register was out due to a storm and one girl had 9 people in line because she couldn't make change. My order was $6.01 and I gave her $6.25 and she was stumped. Finally I got behind the counter never touched the money just told her how much change to give back until the mnager got there. The manager gave me a fresh order for free. Felt so sorry for that girl and she was 19....eeks!!!!

that is pathetic...scary too. It seems if you go thru a fast food place (now there's an oxymoron) and give them the extra pennies, it just blows their minds!

And would someone please teach our kids what time zone they live in? Or for that matter, how to tell time? I've mentioned that I might be going to Alaska to teach some creative writing courses...a friend's response was "do you have your passport up to date?" I just stared at her. Unbelievable! And she is an adult!

JJ

JJ

Stupid people breed.

And breed.

And breed.

Scary.

You gals are so funny.

Meredith, I think my parents bred to raise my sister and me to make change since my dad owned several department stores. We weren't going to lie around all summer (even in elementary school) and be coach potatoes. He put us to work early. He would sit us down and make us learn how to make change. Wasn't a pleasant experience because he had one huge temper. But, today I'm glad he forced us to learn.

When I had my DQ, very few of the kids that worked there knew how to make change. And, they were smart kids. I gave up and allowed them to let the register show them how much change to give. It kept the line moving anyway.

A Passport for Alaska? Do you think that is from people not traveling? No, wait. That couldn't be it. Didn't we learn this stuff in grade school?

Didn't we learn this stuff in grade school?

Egad, yes we did. We also learned tedious stuff like multiplication tables by rote memory. And how to diagram a sentence. And do long division and fractions without a calculator. And we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. And we learned that if we were caught cheating, hitting a kid on the playground, or stealing someone else's lunch money, there'd be hell to pay. My husband and I basically "shadow-taught" our sons when they were in K-12 (multiplication drills on car trips, etc.) because I was/still am horrified by this team-teaching/team-learning method. No one learns individual responsibiliity that way, that's for sure.

Ain't it so NancyB? We ummm...also learned that "ain't, ain't no word." Sorry Mom. I can remember her doing things like this:

I would say

"Can't find my shoes! Do you know where they're at?"

Mom would answer with

"Behind the A and the T." In other words...bad sentence.

She would drive me crazy with "lessons."

Sigh...it was hard being me.

JJ

Chatty - I have experienced the same situation when handing a person bills and change. The casher did not know what to do with the change.

JJ - My family and I moved back to Alaska in 1991 and a co-worker asked me how we were going to get there since I do not like to fly. I told her we were driving. She insisted that was impossible because Alaska was an island and when I corrected her she got angry and said Alaska is next to Hawaii on a map. I said, "A flat map."

I then asked her what kind of climate Alaska and Hawaii had and she replied that Alaska was cold and Hawaii was hot. I told her, if she knew that then that should have been her first clue those two states were not in the same region.

I then brought a globe to work and educated her on the location of Alaska. Her next statement was, "If Alaska is up there it should belong to Canada, not the U.S." I educated her on that also. She was 26 years old when this happened.

At the same time my son's friend, who was 9, asked what kind of currency does Alaska use. Okay from a 9 year old I could deal with the ignorance a bit easier.

My daughter is a 7th grade teacher and she cannot believe how the schools have dumbed down. She needed newspaper articles for current events and I told her to take the New York Times from the house and she said she couldn't because the reading level is too advanced for the 7th grade students.

Amazing.

Passport to Alaska? Here's another good one:

When my oldest son arrived from Korea at three months, THREE MONTHS okay?...my friend was telling her friend (are you with me?)about his arrival. She thought it was so cool...whatever...and she wanted to know if he would speak Korean when he started talking?!

My friend was like, what the heck? Of course not. What are you crazy? (Hang on. It gets better.)

Then her friend asked if he would at least have a Korean accent?

Isn't that hysterical? I still get such a kick out of it. Isn't it wild what people think? I still can't get over that!