|
When I was a kid we learned long math, column addition and subtraction. It was a necessary skill at the store because the registers didn’t compute change back in the day, and the cashiers didn’t always get it right. I remember my mom going over the register tape when she got home, matching each item from the grocery and re-totaling the slip - and going back in when she found an error!
People from her generation could look at a column of numbers (3+ digits each) and tell you at a glance if the total is correct. I can’t do that (although I try). But I can do change in my head faster than the clerk can take my payment and key it into the register.
Now with electronic registers, that is no longer needed. Mistakes are rare, and not a math problem but a “data entry” problem if there is an error.
The old skills are cool, but really that’s about it. Tech is definitely better, if less satisfying, in the same way that a Seiko keeps great time but lacks the what, romance?, of a hand made watch.
|