My first ever full-time job was in a grocery store. I was mostly working at the till, and after a while, we had all the prices for all the items in the store computed into our brains. It was a nuisance, of course, whenever the prices changed, but it kept our minds working.
Then came the codes. Suddenly, we had to learn a three-digit code for each item. Fine for us, we didn’t have to worry about fluctuating prices anymore. The customers complained, of course – we stopped pricing the items individually, as the price was displayed on the shelves, and the staff didn’t have clue what things cost after a while. The customers learned to live with it eventually, and our brains were still having to do some work from time to time.
I went on to other venues well before the avent of barcode scanners. Nowadays, they don’t have to bother their minds with anything but scanning barcodes. They don’t even have to figure out money – the cash register tells them how much change to give you. I sometimes deliberately confuse them by producing excess change after the sums have been registered. For some, it’s absolutely impossible to figure out when they have to do it themselves. I know. I’m evil.
I’m no math wiz, but I can make a quick assessment of what a certain sum of Norwegian Kroner is in Euros, Pounds, Dollars or whatever, and I can actually tell you what your change for a hundred will be if you’re paying 78. Just like that. Most kids nowadays can’t. It’s not their fault. They’re born with a cell phone in one hand and a remote in the other.
They’re learning things now that we’d never heard of in my day, and I hope these things somehow compensate for what they’re lacking in what I would call general, practical knowledge.
Oh, God, I’m old.
Stumble it!
