Technology is our Frienemy

Today I was at the drug-store to make the final purchase of our health flexible spending account. The account had $5.52 left in it and I thought that it was the prime opportunity to purchase some Airborne. I waited in the 7-person long line and explained to the cashier that I'd like to put exactly $5.52 on my flexible spending credit card and pay the rest in cash.

I could be wrong, but over the last few years I've come to the unsettling decision that many people don't have basic arithmetic skills. This is after numerous visits to the laundromat where I tell the cashier how much change to give me after they stand there for a very awkward 10 seconds before they look at me with an expression that says, 'Do you know?'

It quickly becomes apparent to me that two things have happened, the woman helping me does not know how to make the amount on the card $5.52 without me first paying the difference in cash and the woman does not know what the difference in cash would be. My zesty-orange airborne came to a grand total of $7.99. She asks me how much I'd like to pay in cash and tells me that I need to figure out what it is.

At this point, I get a little flustered because I'm very annoyed that she cannot tell me what I owe and does not have the means to figure it out. She tells me I owe $8 and I give her $3 and tell her I'd like to pay $2.48 until I see that the register says $7.99 and then I change it to $2.47.

She takes the money and I swipe the card and sign. She then stares at me again and says, "How much did you pay in cash?" I tell her I paid $2.47 in cash. She looks at the $3 and once again I encounter the awkward silence so I say, "I gave you $3 so you owe me 53 cents in change", to which she replies, "I'm not in the mood for math today."

This leads to my point: Technology is killing our arithmetic skills

If the people handling many arithmetic transactions on a daily basis cannot do arithmetic, how many people are left with these basic skills. I just may be that the people taking our money are not always the sharpest pencils of the bunch and that is why they're working a crappy dead-end job. The folks who learn to add and subtract in elementary school get the more mediocre desk jobs later in life; now that's something to strive for!