Arithmetic

This isn't news. It's barely a blog post. But if you can't rant about it in the blogosphere, where can you rant about it?

This particular "it" being basic arithmetic.

The folks over at Petco run a charity to help get pets adopted. They used to just ask for a charitable contribution of $1 at checkout, but I'm guessing too many people said no so they now offer to round your purchase up to the next dollar instead. Simple enough. As a supporter of this particular charity, I always say yes.

This change has apparently thrown the checkout folks for a loop. Since they couldn't do the round up in their head, Petco has placed a cheat sheet next to the cash register. It gets better... the young lady running the register I was at was intimidated by the cheat sheet. I'd make this up if I could (and I have a minor in creative writing!) but my imagination hurts when I think about it too much.

Apologies for being so crass, but WTF?

I'm not suggesting that everyone in society have wizardry status with their local mathematics department. God knows that I haven't busted out sin²+cos²=1 or anything I learned in differential equations since college. I am, however, suggesting that everyone needs a command of basic arithmetic. If you can't do 100-18 in your head (the round up necessary for my last purchase at Petco), then I'm confident that a little practice won't hurt.

Netflix just delivered Idiocracy by Mike Judge of Office Space fame. Talk about timing...

(ps. the answer is 82.)