Wrench Loc: NE CT

Thankfully the system hasn’t gotten to that point yet. When it does, she will have a lot more free time and the staff shortage will get just a tad worse.

srg

😂🤣👍

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Being in East Los Angeles my students were largely Mexican immigrants, Mexican-American and some other Latin American with a small mix of other ethnic groups. Those who had gone to school in other countries or had been in Catholic schools were often shocked at the differences in most of their classes. They had a grapevine knowledge of the "good" teachers and would go to great lengths to get into their classes.
During a period when "Reading" was being pushed and all subjects had 10-15 minutes of silent reading per period, per day the English department gave me a classroom set of Dickens-the simplified English version. Students complained how had the Victorian English was to understand and one boy in an 8th grade class jumped up and yelled at them that he had read the "real" version in 5th grade at a Catholic school.

I found that my students could be divided into three groups - 1/3 couldn't perform and didn't care, 1/3 would perform and learn if they had a good teacher, 1/3 would perform and learn on their own no matter what.

My last 13 years I was at James A. Garfield HS (Jaime Escalante and the movie "Stand and Deliver"). We were #1 or #2 in the state of CA for ten years straight in the number of graduates pre-accepted into the UC system. Our two magnet center schools and University Preparatory Program (I taught their World History) integrated in with our regular students were in the top rank of schools nationally. Our GATE (Gifted And Talented Education) program was double the size of most high school's program and the magnet schools, UPP & GATE all had huge waiting lists of students who wanted in.
Those special programs had 1100 to 1200 students per year out of over 4000 students total on all three tracks. (the HS's in East LA are much smaller now because they open up one new school after I retired-around 2400 or so students each now.
One of our teachers had a hobby of keeping educational statistics and she determined that those special program kids if in a separate school would have been at the least in the top 5% of all secondary schools in the nation.

Yet at the other extreme we had so many low performing and ESL/English learners (they were tested in English which lowered their scores and therefore the school's scores a lot) that the schools scores and esp. improvement/progress rate was so low we were constantly being threatened with being directly taken over by the County School Board or the state Department of Education. We also had a very high dropout rate. Even some of my best students were just waiting to be old enough to get a work permit and drop out - they told me "I'll just signup for night school or the Community College and skip HS graduation."

usn ret Loc: SoCal High Desert

And our 1st astronauts were sent aloft in systems, equipment, processes and procedures created by engineers and scientists using slide rules. mechanical calculators, and pencils and paper, how did they ever get them to the moon and back????
I had a heck of time with fractions and my Mom being practical and creative used a pie. not pi, to illustrate how fractions worked. It worked and we ate the leftovers. 1/3, 1/2, 3/4, slices, and using the different combinations of pie would equal what ever the answer should be. Some people need a visual connection to a group abstract numbers, then you get an ah ha moment.....

ShelbyDave Loc: Lone Rock, WI

Thanks for the laugh! I think I knew some of these guys!

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Thanks, Dave!
Mark

radiojohn

Thanks for you service with the police. I cannot imagine dealing with the constant flow of people trying to get away with things.

Ichiban365

I think the replies on this are off base. The prices in a store are an offer to sell. Most of the time you accept the offer - or in some interpretations, you make an offer to buy by taking the item to the checkout. The store then accepts your offer and rings it up. But in this case, the cashier offered to sell these items for a lower price, and the buyer accepted. Just because the buyer did not pay the posted price does not make it theft. Putting a wrong tag on a product would be theft, because it is deliberately misleading the cashier as to the normal price at which the store offers the item for sale.

nervous2 Loc: Provo, Utah

They live among us. Not sure how they reached adulthood, but hey!

Fredrick Loc: Former NYC, now San Francisco Bay Area

That’s why they work at White Castle. Sad.

paulrph1 Loc: Washington, Utah

OK TRY to ask a young person about new potatoes.

NotAnselAdams Loc: Pueblo, CO

You can tell God loves stupid people; he created so many of them
Not Ansel

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

I worked in retail full and part time for 13 years in college and after I started teaching. The cashier did not offer to sell the items at a reduced price, the price was correct for one of each item. The cashier screwed up by not ringing up the number of each item and the OP took advantage. That is a crime here in CA and I suspect most states.
The proper next step was to ask for a supervisor or even up to the manager and then tell that person in detail what the screwup was. If after reaching the highest person in the store they still insisted the price was right he could have paid and asked the manager to sign the receipt and keep it for proof. OP could have sent a copy to corporate or the regional HQ to get the extra training the staff obviously need. Why? Because if they are that bad then the place is also probably screwing up in other ways and costing some people more money (maybe the OP) and could go out of business. Then OP would have to find another place to buy building materials - maybe even having to buy them on line if another building supply source was not close enough.
My little home town had ONE lumber yard and the next nearest I remember was either across the Ohio in Illinois or 25 miles away in the city of Paducah KY. But that was in the 50's/60's and we would have never had a problem like that. Much better schools and the owner of the lumber yard knew every family in town and the area around and most of the individuals by sight or name.
Once when I was home on leave from Vietnam I went into our ONE small bank branch to cash a check on my Army account (Chase Manhattan Bank, Saigon Branch) and not only did they not even blink, the manager came over to say hello and ask me to say Hi! to my Grandmother. When I mentioned that while visiting my father and step-mother in St Louis my Dad's bank had him sign to make up my check if it bounced the Manager laughed and said I've known you family since before I started school and have known you since you were a toddler. I trust you and if something goes wrong I will just walk 2 1/2 blocks to your Grandmother's house, say hello to her and tell her so she can let you know and you can then take care of it by phone or letter with me.

But if I had ever screwed him and the bank you can bet it would have been a cold day in hell before he (or anyone else-the whole town would have know in a short time) ever trusted me again. And my family would have been on his side.

Trust and competence are valuable things.

Ichiban365

What is the crime here? The customer paid the price he or she was quoted for the items.

Many people would have pointed out the error, which is in my opinion the right thing to do. I have lost track of the number of times, starting about age 5, that I have tried to point out an error in my favor, only to have a cashier or shop owner snap at me "There's nothing we can do once you leave the store" or words to that effect. At which point I leave the store. I still try. In fact, over my lifetime I will bet that I have pointed out more errors in my favor than in the store's favor. But how far do I have to argue with someone in a store before in your opinion I have not committed a crime?

Last week in Safeway I bought two items with 50% off stickers, which the cashier failed to notice, so they wrang up at the original price. I pointed out the error, and he corrected it. But if I had not noticed until I got home, has the store committed a crime? I don't think so, because it was an honest mistake.

Many people on this thread are making fun of people like the cashier who have no idea how much a purchase should cost. Suppose the roles are reversed: the customer has no idea how much something should cost, and walks out of the store thinking the price was correct? Have they committed a crime? Certainly there is no intent involved, just lack of attention or lack of ability with math.

Rather than continue to beat this topic to death, let me leave you with this story for the UK, allegedly true. A man saw an ad in the paper (this is an old story) for a Jaguar XKE for five pounds. He went to see it, and in fact bought it from a woman for that price. He asked her why the price was so low. She replied "My husband ran off to the South of France with his secretary. He just sent me a telegram which said 'Sell the Jag and wire me the money'".

WIHorseman

I once stopped at a Subway in Modesto CA. The young gal took my order and when she was checking me out she said the bill was $7 something. I gave her a twenty and she handed me back change for a ten. I pointed out that I gave her a twenty and she looked down at the twenty still resting on the cash register. I knew she was struggling to figure out how to correct the error sense you didn’t know how to re-enter the bill I gave her into the register and without it telling her what change to give me she was lost. I explained to her all she needed to do was give me a $10 bill and we would be even. She thought for a moment and as she handed me the twenty she said you must be an engineer. I am but I don’t think that played any part of me knowing the correct answer. I wished her the best of luck and left the store shaking my head.