duh! doh!

So I bought a burger at Oscar's, a long-time local burger joint in Berkeley. And cheap, although they don't advertise that their meat is grass-fed and/or free-ranch, which is probably why they are cheaper.  They are tasty.

So I bought a burger and hung around at the register waiting for the burger and waiting to cash in my two buck Megamillions winner.  Usually I order, then pay, then sit and wait but last night, no one took my money. The cashier guy took forever to take the money of people being served ahead of me. And then when the next burger was ready, the cashier guy was confused about who it was for. He seemed to have forgotten that Oscar's has a drive-up window. It's not a modern computerized window with an intercom. The customer pulls up to a window and waits for the cashier to notice and then the window is opened manually.

So the cashier figured out the burger wasn't for me.  He hands over the food, takes in a twenty, rings it up but then the grill guy cleared the register to take my money. But the cashier guy stopped him, so cashier guy could finish.

Cashier guy could not count the change. He got out pencil and paper, wrote down $20.00, then wrote down $7.82 and subtracted. Repeatedly.  Also repeatedly, he started counting out the change, seemed to think the change was supposed to be $7.82 and when he realized he was mistaken, he started all over. And by starting all over, I mean, he too a new sheet of paper and started calculating.  I saw, instantly, that the change was $12.18. Or else the cashier was subtracting the wrong number.  I didn't see the bills and coins he was taking out of the register, counting laboriously and in obvious confusion.

So the grill guy finishes my burger and gestures for me to give him my money. But this rattled the cashier guy. When I brought up the issue of my two dollar lottery win, they both waved me off.  My behavior distracted them, I think.

I don't think I was behaving inappropriately.  I think the cashier guy couldn't count. The grill guy was Hispanic and English was not his first langauge, which says nothing about his ability to read and write, especially his ability to read and write numbers.

It was strange. Those two twenty-something (maybe the grill guy was thirty-something, but not by much) got rattled or something. Or else maybe the were high. But I don't think they were. I think the cashier guy couldn't add.

And my point?  I have not had much interaction with people who struggle with basic literacy. Being able to make change is basic literacy, right?

A few years ago, my sister the high school English teacher, at least at that time, had lessons in her English class about food stamps.  I asked her why food stamps in English class. She said the kids could learn English grammar, vocabulary and writing skills addressing any subject and many of the students were on welfare and food stamps and few of her students had much awareness of what things cost or how to budget. She said she had the impression that until she talked to them about food stamps, they had not really thought of how food stamps added lots of food to their households, had not equated dollar values to the food stamps.  I'm not sure if this was true.

Back in the eighties, I ran a training business with a business partner who had dropped out of high school. She was plenty smart. She had completed most of the coursework for a masters degree somewhere, even though she had no college degree. She had a lot of training in the work we did and she was gifted and smart. Once I remarked to her about IQ's and my biz partner said she thought that the average IQ was much higher than commonly believed. She said she thought everyone had IQ's near hers, which was in the one fifties or one sixties. She said.

I remember wanting to believe her. She taught me a lot about process work. She knew a lot more about the work we did than I did, at least when we started working together.  I am sure she was as smart as she said she was. But education is not about being smart.  It really is, at least in part, about knowing things.  You can have a scary high IQ but be unable to count change for a twenty dollar bill.

I had a summer job in college at a movie theater. I sold candy, sodas and popcorn.  There was no cash register and sales tax was built into the pricing so I did not have to calculate sales tax.  Within one day behind the candy counter, I instantly calculated change for any purchase and any proferred payment. I wasn't able to do this cause I am smart. All candy counter workers performed the same calculations. There was no cash register or adding machine. There was only a metal box to hold money.

I have not had much interaction with people who can't make change.  It was weird.