2+2=3

[captpackrat]

Doesn't anyone know how to do simple math anymore?

I went to the fabric store to pick up 3 yards of material ($7.99 a yard) and a package of buttons ($1.75). The material was on sale, 30% off.

So the girl starts ringing me up. They didn't have a cash register, just a calculator and a "cheat sheet" with all the sale prices.

Mistake #1: She looks up the 20% discount instead of 30%. Naturally, I point this out.

Mistake #2: She looks up the 30% discount for $6.99 instead of $7.99. I'm a fairly honest guy, so I point this out as well.

Mistake #3: I'm not sure how she did it, but she ended up with the store paying me $2.something to buy the material. So she has to ask a coworker how to add things up.

Mistake #4: Instead of doing 5.59x3, she types 5.59+3 on the calculator. OK, now this is getting ridiculous. I wanted to get out of there, so I didn't say anything. She's already been corrected 3 times, twice by the customer. If the store was stupid enough to hire someone so incompetent, then they deserve to lose money.

Interestingly, she actually got the tax correct.

So I ended up getting nearly $28 worth of stuff for $11. Yay me!

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

This is why fast food restaurants have cash registers with pictures of the food items on them. Yes, innumeracy is a growing problem in our society. They don't know how to make change either unless the cash register tells them how much to give you.

It is not entirely a new development, however. I remember my grandmother crowing about incidents not unlike yours, way back in the 60s. Once she went to Montgomery Ward to buy a $29.95 item that was on a 10% off sale. The teen-aged sales clerk said "Let's see, $29.95 with ten percent off. That's $29.95 less ten dollars, so it will be $19.95 plus tax." She also kept quiet and just accepted her good fortune. :)

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I'm almost always honest when it comes to pointing out math mistakes in my favor at checkouts, but, like you, when it gets ridiculous, I'll just reckon the discrepancy as 'idiot tax' and move on. ;-)