OT Can people not do mental arithmetic or use a calculator any more?

[Chris Hogg]

What is to prevent someone putting some of their 'purchases' into their basket but not scanning them, and leaving without paying for them? Where are the checks in that system?

[Andy Burns]

Random check once every few months where a member of staff samples about six items from your packed bags.

[SteveW]

As I wok in Engineering, I've always wondered what response I'd get to setting my extension's answerphone message to "I'm sorry, the number you have dialled is imaginary, please turn your phone through 90° and try again", would be. Unfortunately, we are now hot-desking on our days in and using Teams rather than phones - I can't even remember the code to log in to one of the desk phones and make it my extension for the day!

[Tim Streater]

Occasionally you get audited, and the assistant comes and scans a number of items in your trolley to verify that you'd scanned them previously. This happens about avery 6 or 7 visits. Some items have tags that need removing, or they need to check that you're over 21. For some unknown reason the steak main meal on the Tescos Meal Deal has a security tag. You also get asked whether any items could not be scanned (some bread items occasionally have rubbish or missing bar codes). Loose fruit & veg you're supposed to weigh as you go round and get a bar-coded sticker.

You initiate the data transfer at the checkout machine, by scanning a barcode that's on the checkout machine's screen. That's also when you get asked about unscanned items.

I imagine Tesco reckons the shrinkage that occurs due to them missing people doing as you suggest is less than what they save by being able to lay off a "colleague".

Waitrose does the same and I think Sainbury too. You're not obliged to use the scanner, though.

Morrison's have the self-service till, where you still unload onto a belt but scan each item at the checkout yourself. Trouble with their system is that you reload into your bags on a giant set of scales, which then has to weigh what is in your bags after each scan action. That means you can't scan the next item until it's happy with the weight of the previous one as you bag it. Makes the process very slow.

[Colin Bignell]

Probably more like several 'colleagues' as, in my local Tesco, only one person now attends sixteen checkouts, half self-scan and half self-checkout.

[Andy Burns]

Apparently these days butter in Russian supermarkets is kept in the type of lockboxes that razorblades are often in ...

[Andrew]

There is a hospital car scheme run by volunteers where I live. The volunteers get paid a mileage allowance by the charity that runs it.

[Andrew]

I still take out £150 in cash regularly for most D2D spending so I don't forget my pins.

Also, it is useful to remember pins as MMYY or YYMM if that is possible.

I have no problems remembering the 12 digit online banking ID number, because each pair of numbers conveniently becomes a hexadecimal ascii character which I do remember (and write down in my A-Z tabbed A4 book of 'things to remember' and useful contacts/URLS/company names/stuff)

[Peter Able]

Not really, and not just a recent thing. A firm I worked for 40 years ago let you do your private photocopying for 1p per copy. I went to the chief cashier to pay for 1,000 copies - and he used a calculator to work out how much I would have to pay.

Keeping a tally during a supermarket shop is rocket science for most of our extremely innumerate society.

Look on the bright side. These dumbos won't find it more difficult if we go back to shillings and pence.

PA

[GB]

Loads of shop managers are incapable of working out 10% without a calculator. Some can't do it WITH a calculator.

[R D S]

This has been bugging me for ages, constant talk of poverty and austerity and almost everyone in our apparently impoverished town is bleach blond, tanned, tattooed, trout pouted etc. There's plainly money to be spent they just want to spend it on indulgences rather than essentials.

[Peter Able]

I'd put that well on the road to rocket science compared to 1,000 pennies!

So do we blame teachers for both the innumeracy and the illiteracy of our society?

PA

[R D S]

Probably someone who's worked and never claimed a penny in his life. Where my workshop is it's as if nobody on the adjacent street works, they're in the co-op buying lager at nine in the morning and having their breakfast delivered by just eat. Living/working where I do I find it hard to take poverty seriously.

[R D S]

I think it depends on the shopping pattern to a large degree, I have to enter my pin frequently at a local off license, either they have a lot of fraud or my bank's algorithm can't believe how often i'm in there!

[PeterC]

It didn't like my big rucsack at about 2.5kg - 'unexpected item in bagging area'. I reckon 'unexpected bag in item area' would have been better.

[SteveW]

I know my card PINs, but have to note down my building access PINs for when I don't go there for a while. I just store them disguised as phone numbers of fictitious individuals in my phone's contact list.

I do the same for my numeric banking ID - as I normally use the phone app and only use web access for particular things that the app does not do, I might only use that ID once or twice a year.

[Andrew]

I can't use a slide rule, and I have forgotten how to use log tables.

They are history, good riddance. There are far more efficient, accurate and effective modern ways to calculate and design.

[Andrew]

£99.99 plus vat is not a difficult calculation though

[ARW]

So that's 64 pc of a tank on my van with the £100 limit at pay at the pumps have for me:-)

All-star card and I am not paying for the fuel.

[pinnerite]

I have gtand children ranging from 8 to 25.

All of them are doing well. Why?

Parents.

Their parents urge them to do their homework, encouraging them at every stage.

No you cannot blame the teachers, unless .. they need a calculator to work out 10% :)

Teach your kids what Seneca said way back during the first century:

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Alan