Age of Ignorance: A Rant

Sometimes I have to wonder about the intellect of my fellow human beings. The following particular complaints are mathematical ones.

First of all, what is up with those tip cards? When people whip them out at restaurants, it seems they want to impress others with how savvy and prepared they are (as in, "Look how smooth I am; I brought condoms!" (i.e. "I knew I was gonna get some tonight!")) I just don't understand how it's so hard to calculate a tip. Some people (I think Bloomberg said this if I'm not mistaken) just double the tax (which is 8.25% in New York. He got trashed for leaving so little!)) More practically, it's mindless to move the decimal point one to the left to get 10%. Then either double it (for 20%, duh!) or take half of 10% and add it onto the 10% (for 15%). And there you have it! Singlegal's solution for the masses.

The next "Made for Stupid" thing I saw recently was a huge chart with a gazillion numbers on it. I was at DSW (which I believe stands for "Discount Shoe Warehouse") and this chart was a guide to pricing. Shoes were 20, 40, 60 or 80% off (though mysteriously, there seemed to be no shoes that were 80% off, and only a handful that were 60%. Damn those sneaky retailers..) The handy dandy chart listed each possible original price (in 10 cent increments or so) and what the new price would be with each of the 4 discounts. It was a sight to see and all those numbers made me a a bit dizzy. Why can't people find 10% and calculate from there? We all took high school math!

Lastly are those cash registers that dispense coins separately from bills when transacting a transaction. (Like that? That's my style!) As I think about it though, I am realizing that those cash registers might also serve the function to expedite transactions and keep customers waiting for a shorter time. I think they've got them at fast food joints where speed is definitely appreciated by the customers (and where the employees might very well be high school dropouts.)

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On the other end of the spectrum (i.e. non-mathematical quirky grievances) are companies that find it appropriate to misspell their names or slogans to achieve marketing prowess. For example, there's Dunkin' Donuts, Rite Aid, Toys "R" Us, and many others that are eluding me right now.

And today, as I indulged in a Butterfinger, I was dismayed to see the slogan: "crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery!" For starters, it invents words (this is different from me inventing words for a blog; I wouldn't give a company an idiotic name or slogan) and those words don't even rhyme. For it to rhyme, it would have to be either "crispety, crunchety, peanut-butty(or buttety)" (all ending in "ty") or "crispery, crunchery, peanut-buttery." But I maintain that "crispy, crunchy, peanut-buttery" isn't all so terrible and still has the best ring to it!

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Those are my complaints for today. Stay tuned for more in the future!