Jim Hampton wrote:
Jim,

I'm going to have to look up that one. I recently went to Burger King (sigh
...). They were running a special - two burgers and two small fries for
$2.22. I ordered four burgers and four small fries only onions and ketchup
on the burgers (this is a very difficult problem; break out the slip stick
and multiply $2.22 times two). Now add two Whopper Juniors at $0.99 each.
Um ... about 2 seconds to come up with $6.42. Then the sales tax. Ok.
This poor gal starts pressing all these buttons and comes up with something
very close to $10.00. I asked her what the sales tax was. 8%. Wrong.
8.25%, but I was being accessed nearly 50%. She looked hopelessly lost, so
I offered that it should be $6.42 plus 8.25%, or something short of $7.00.
She started pressing more buttons. She smiled, hit enter (or whatever) and
then expressed dismay as the total was now around $15.00. She called the
manager over. He explained what she did wrong, hit some buttons, smiled ...
and stared at the total - now over $29.00. I was beginning to think I'd be
better off at Radio Shack. This problem is a *lot* bigger than amateur
radio. They threw out the regents math test in New York since so many kids
failed. I recall one point was made that it included geometry (unfair).
Huh? I don't know what folks think math includes, but if it is button
pushing, I've met one manager that would have failed button pushing 101

It's not just stupid people - tho' there are enough of them around. In
your cited case, the techno-weenies that designed the cash register
accounting system have made things both too simple and too complicated.
So every time there is a special, or if a mistake is made, then all h**l
breaks loose.

The weenies who put those systems together have made it unnecessary to
think most of the time. So a mistake comes along, and the person behind
the register has to use a muscle they may not have excercised in weeks -
their mind.



Say, have you seen the ad on TV touting one quick oil change place (was it
Jiffy Lube?). They have folks that have been 'certified' by an organization
called something like 'oil change specialists of America'.

Now there is some wallpaper I'd like to get. Sign me up!


Seeing these sort of events lately, I'm wondering if others have had similar
experiences. If they have, is there a chance they might see some wisdom in
having some kind of exam before turning someone loose with 1.5 KW of RF and
perhaps thousands of volts in their amp? Yep, I didn't think so either.


Hoo, that would weed out the dummies quickly! ;^)

- Mike KB3EIA -