AIBU to think that a shop assistant shouldn't need a calculator for 3 x 70p?

[Flibbertyjibbet]

We went for icecreams at the weekend (yes I know it was freezing but we were at the seaside....) I asked for 3 of the 70p cones.

I had £2.10 ready, I hardly needed to even do the sum in my head.

The girl gave us 3 cones, I had put £2.10 on the counter. She waited for her colleague to finish using the calculator while I said pleasantly - 'its £2.10'. She appeared to tap in the numbers wrongly cos she took a really long time to tap in 3 x 70 =, I said nicely -'its £2.10'.

She finally said 'thats £2.10 please'.

Fair enough if they are adding up a massive order with lots of different types of ice creams. But if you work in a place where you sell multiples of the same thing a lot of the time, wouldn't you sort of get to know the price of 2, 3, 4 of each kind or thing?

But then I worked in pubs before they had those clever tills and had to add everything up in my head right first time or the drunks would complain to the landlord.

AIBU? Or am I just so old that I forget the young un's rely on calculators all the time now?

A lady i worked with sometimes couldn't add up simple sums either. She used to have a pad and used to write the sums down to work them out.

Is that better?

Balloonslayer - my point entirely.

Arithmetic is an essential life skill.

Maths is for people who may need it ithe application of some academic discipline.

That is why the subjects used to be studied seperately.

Backtobasics...depends whether she had to do them all the time and customers/co-workers were made to wait all the time because of it.

If it was just occasionally I dont think it would bother me at all.

she might just not be very confident, i can be like that sometimes and doubt my self, especially with customers, its a nervous thing

"I watched 2 cashiers struggle to calculate £8.16 - £7.36 today."

pete's sake, stealth. My mental maths is pretty good but I'd awither over that if put on the spot!

Mental rithmetic is important but it's a bit too simplistic to say 'it's a life skill'. For many people, it is not. They use calculators and, more commonly, tills.

Research has shown that poorly educated street children in Brazil have brilliant mental maths skills as they survive by selling fruit etc at stalls. Now that's a real life skill worth learning.

I'd swither, not awither

I'm pretty good at mental artimatic. I used to work on a market stall and am now an accountant. Sometimes, though, I have real blank moments and end up doing the simplest of sums on my calculator (e.g. 25% of 60 ) So I'm generally inclined to be charitable about these things.

I do get very irritated by people who use a calculator to start with and still get it wrong.

apologies for not having read the whole thread ...... i worked for a conveyancing practice where very very few of the staff members could work out the 10% deposit of the purchase price.

Back in the 80s I played darts in the local pub league. The scores were kept by someone adding up the three darts (including doubles and triples) then subtracting from 501 down. The score keepers had to do really fast mental arithmetic and woe betide if anyone got it wrong as numerous voices would immediately point out the error.

Hardly anyone seemed to struggle with numbers in those days.

I think having a real incentive to learn and a reason to practise a skill every day makes someone good.

I'd've thought a lot of modern day darts players would be good at sums too.

We used to have one of those tills where it didn't add anything up for you, you could just punched in the total and pressed the button to open the till. It didn't work out your change either.

So we used to have to add everything up in our heads and then work out the change too. We would add it up in our heads as we went along and you do get used to it. It certainly does keep your brain active. But there were times we would use the calculator, with that many numbers going around in your head, plus with the customer talking to you at the same time, you don't always get it right. So one customer might came in, you have used the calculator for their order and that customer might go away thinking you always use the calculator and that you can't add up.

Plus when you said you told her how much it was and she still used the calculator, well i know in this case you were blatently right about the price, but we would get customers who would tell you the price before you have added it up and quite often they would be wrong! So it's always worth double checking.

I think YANBU in this case, we have had girls in the shop who just cannot add up ANYTHING. One girl couldn't at 90p onto an order I suspect the girl you are talking about selling ice creams just didn't know how to add up or won't even try.

But for those who are saying it's a basic life skill etc, that's a tad patronising imo. When you have a shop full of customers all waiting to be served, your running around like a blue ass fly doing many different things, adding up items in your head as you go along, having people change their minds on items or being difficult, number do go out your head and you can make mistakes. I don't think there are alot of people who could do a job like that everyday.

Ah pointy that's the problem. The chalky was invented - an automatic chalking machine which did the addition and subtraction for the darts players and so no reason to work it out in your head any more.

It is terrible that there is such a lack of basic maths skills.However,it is not surprising in view of the absoultuetly shit way that the state education system is making schools teach at the moment.The standards neededto have achieved the level that all the state schools are aiming to get their children to by the end of primary school is really basic and so many children are leaving with a false sense their ability- the level they get may reach government targets, but it does not take much up top to achieve it.

Subsequently, to get a C at GCSE maths is also quite easy.

The shame is that the more intelligent children do not get stretched because they can do that level of maths, probably a few years earlier, and they ARE being held backib state schools, whatever schoolssay anboutinvidual targets: it's mostlypaper work and form filling for schools.

THe weaker children get all the attention , everything is aimed at helping them .

But as someone else pointed out it's easy to get a decimal point wrong or whetever on a calculator, and without a vague idea of what the answer should be you blindly trust the wronog answer.

Maybe IABU - do people really have a problem with £8.16 - £7.36 in their heads? I don't mean know the answer instantly, but given 10 seconds or so? (Bearing in mind £8.36 would be exacty one pound more...) The two cashiers yesterday looked completely blank, even with a pen and paper.

It is lack of education usually though.
I moved my sons from a school where they had never had a times table, or mental maths test/piece of homework and did no mental arithmetic at school at all.
The school they attend now, has mental maths tests twice a week and times tables every week.
The improvement is enormous in both my children and one is G&T at maths and the other has dyscalculia.

'the chalky' -

if she'd had her times tables drummed into her at school she wouldn't have had to actually think about it at all. Sigh...

YANBU - What's so hard about 70 x 3? It's just 7 x 3 with a nought at the end. I do not have a maths qualification to my name and even I can work that one out.

wanders off muttering about the nation going to hell in a handcart*

PQ, I think that's what people mean when they say you either get it or you don't. You can see 3x70 is 3x7x10 but some people don't. Same for chunking of addition. I struggle to see it but think IABU!

Oh, I'm still slightly bitter about that one, polarbear. Am old enough to have been made to do maths 'the long way round' at school - there was just one proper way to do a sum and you had to show all your workings out. So I wasn't allowed to break it down into chunks like '3 x 7 x 10', you had to do 3 x 70 in columns or something I forget.

Now ds and his little friends are allowed to explore lots of different methods. And 'make an intelligent guess'. I am !

What would you consider to be old enough to remember doing sums the long way round edam? I am in my mid twenties and i did sums the long way round at school and had to show my workings out too.

If you want your kids to learn maths, get them to play darts and add up the numbers. It is a brilliant way of learning to count.

I'm awful at showing workings. I'm very good at mental maths. I can look at a sum or equation and work it out in my head in less than a minute, but if asked I'd be unable to explain how I did it.

I have the Maths training on my DS. It's really good for refreshing your memory on times tables and stuff

Oh, OK, I was imagining my resentment was down to being an old fart! It's just that it is SO much better now when they are told there are lots of different ways to achieve the same ends and allowed to use them, rather than being forced to do everything one, very long-winded way. And I am jealous of ds being encouraged to 'estimate'.

I was turned off maths at school by these tedious rules that seemed to force everyone to work at the pace of someone who really hadn't got it at all.