Some numbers are inherently more crunchy than others. I suppose. Joanne Jacobs writes about how a car rental employees felt duty bound to explain to her what 3/8 represented. She explained, to his surprise, that this did not pose a major challenge to her. Though I don't particularly pride myself on my math skills, it doesn't much challenge me either.
Last weekend I was at a joint upstate where they sold food outside. I bought two items, one costing $8.50 and a side order of that cost $2.00. The woman at the counter dutifully added these two numbers with a pencil and paper, and charged me $12.50. I told her it was $10.50. She then did the math over again, and got a more senior employee to help. It turned out I was right.
I was standing nearby and noticed several other errors, and a little bit of a wait between customers as these calculations took place. There were a few reasons for this--one being the cash register was located inside. The other, of course, was that the young woman was the daughter of the owner.
Getting jobs is tough in this economic climate. Still, having your dad own the business is always one of the very best ways to break in.
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