Jeff's random thought of the day # 2.

[JeffinNZ]

I don't know that I can decide whether the younger generation is getting increasingly stupid or I am just becoming a grumpy old man (or a combination of both).

My place of work has no dedicated lunch room so I like to wander down to the airport terminal on my lunch break (1 hour) and get an espresso to slurp while I read a book or magazine. I have branded thermal cup from my favourite outlet so get 15% off making my coffee $3.60 which is pretty cheap by local standards. That's about where the joy ends lately though.

My 'pet' barrista gals have all left and now noobs abound. One lass gets my change wrong every time. She gets absolutely flumoxed at the idea of the cup size and discount amount and needs to be bailed out each time:groner:; I avoid her kiosk. it's just easier.

Today yet another new face greets me. Lovely looking girl and cheerful which is nice. It must be a thankless job really. Hurried travelers mostly who are tired or grumpy or both. She takes my reusable cup and looks me in the eye and asks "do you want your coffee in this or a takeaway cup?". For a period that seemed like 10 seconds I stood dumb struck trying desperately to comprehend what had been said at which time she said it again. All the time my tiny lil brain is ticking over asking why I would bring my own cup and expect a paper one with the beverage in. Anyways, the penny dropped (for me a least) and I said camly and without a hint of sarcasm (not easy given the sitaution and my demeanour) "in my cup thank you".

End result was the correct change and my coffee so all was well but it begs the question - are they getting dumber or am I getting grumpier?

End.

[firefly1957]

I always took a thermos of tea to work myself. I do know what she meant we had a guy in the van pool that bought their cup for discount but always had them give him a disposable cup I asked him why , he was to lazy to wash it.

[bandit7.5]

1.90 espresso at the gas station, better than starbucks flavour wise whole lot better service too. I use a starbucks cup too, no problem. I never buy if the counter girl looks less than
25 I turn around and leave, our new crop of gooberment eddicated kids can't make change
for a dollar less 99 cents.

[Haggway]

For giggles sometimes, I test these kids. I carry a few two dollar bills around with me. It has given me proof several times the gubermint brain washed kids are really that stupid. I will try to pay my tab. And many time the kid looks at the bills funny, and then tells me they can't take them either because they don't know how to enter it into the register, or no way these are not real. So I think we are getting grumpy because of the stupidity.

[Norbrat]

I often get stunned looks from the sweet young things when I hand over exactly the correct change for 3 or 4 items in the supermarket before they can tell me how much the total is.

I just tell them I went to school "BC"; before calculators!!

[leftiye]

To answer your question, yes, they are;yes, we are. I've always prided myself on being the nastiest person that I know. In my old age I am scaring myself. It's getting scary to go out to town and see the chaos and idiocy.

[Glen]

The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity..... ;-)

[geargnasher]

Einstein is supposedly credited with remarking that stupidity is arguably MORE abundant than hydrogen, and therefore is the fundamental building block of the Universe. Tough to argue with that after half a lifetime of observation.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i am sure i have contributed to the non hydrogen side of the equasion a time or two.

[JeffinNZ]

You guys rock!

[bob208]

before i got my cell phone. my truck broke down so i walked to the next off ramp where there was a truckstop. went to use the phone but needed a quarter all i had was a $20 bill. it took the 2 bimbets 1 hour t figuer out how to give me change.

you want to really mess with them. when your bill is something like $15 60 or some odd change give them a $20 and a $1. and watch the fun begin.

[firefly1957]

bob208 you are just to funny!

[bruce drake]

Jeff,
Its nice to see that Grouchy Old Men are prevalent across the water as well. Now you just need to start wearing tweeds so you can look like an old English Country Gentleman... Do they make a purple tweed??? ;)

Bruce

[DLCTEX]

Give the youngsters a five for something costing 4.31, then after they have rung it up, come up with .31 cents. Panic time! Usually they will just take my word for what they owe me.

[lbaize3]

Jeff, you are a hoot! Love your sense of humor. You manage to put into print those things that I consider in passing, but lack the eloquence to express using the Queen's English. Write a book my friend, I will certainly purchase it....

[geargnasher]

before i got my cell phone. my truck broke down so i walked to the next off ramp where there was a truckstop. went to use the phone but needed a quarter all i had was a $20 bill. it took the 2 bimbets 1 hour t figuer out how to give me change.

you want to really mess with them. when your bill is something like $15 60 or some odd change give them a $20 and a $1. and watch the fun begin.

It's all the same to them, they are incapable of planning ahead or managing bills in a till. When they run out of something, they either shut down the line or pull more change from the safe. It never occured to most of them that a person might actually be thinking in terms of COURTESY when dealing with hard currency, but often tills tend to run out of small bills because inconsiderate, lazy, or inept people just throw a $20 at the clerks for any amount under that so I attempt to compensate somewhat to round to the next bill size with change. I can't tell you how many times the clerk has handed me back the extra small bills plus the change, utterly clueless. Another good one is when the amount is, say, $4.83 and I hand them $5.08. Deer in the headlights! I've been asked "Sir, what do you want me to do?" many times. I just tell them to punch the numbers into their register and give me the quarter it will tell them to. I like quarters.

Gear

[AndyC]

"How many do you want, sir?"

"Half a dozen, please"

".... um....how many is that?"

:groner:

Next time I'll ask for a baker's dozen.

[JeffinNZ]

Half a dozen....or six....whichever suits you.

[.30/30 Guy]

The intelligence of the planet is constant. Only the population is increasing.

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

While I agree with the dumbness of society today, once in a while I get stunned as happened at the range last week. In drives a van ma & pa and 4 kids, oh great I think another load of tards.
the youngest boy is out first, sporting a coonskin hat and a leather pouch hanging off his belt.
I'm thinking his folks watch Dan'el Boone reruns.

I say hi and strike up a conversation, and after a few moments I am the one dumbfounded. This kid was 9 years old, had already made to ewe self bows ON HIS OWN, and the leather pouch was full of stone points he had knapped himself! He was a fair shot with the Chipmunk 22 he was shooting as well. I had to shake his daddy's hand and congratulate him on raising a fine young man.
A rather pleasant surprise in this age of video games and portable pocket ringers

[MtGun44]

Glen is right.

I had a friend that was working on an "Artificial Intelligence" project. I warned him to beware
of the side effects. He asked "What side effects?"

I said,"Well by the law of Conservation of Stupidity, for every unit of Artificial Intelligence
created, an equal quantity of Artificial Stupidity would be created, and this could lead to
local buildups of stupidity, which could be very unpleasant."

Perhaps someone near the airport is working on Artificial Intelligence. ;-)

Bill

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

here is a movie I just loved to hate...or is that hated to love.
it seems more true than satirical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

[missionary5155]

Good morning
When I got to my first real tank platoon in the pickle suit Army my platoon sargent was "orientating" me to his platoon. During the course of the intruduction to "Daddy Popes" Army he kindly let me know I should never be far from my own personal coffee cup and except for the company area & motor pool my spoon was to be proudly displayed in the left pocket hole ready for service. "Never pass up any bite of hot chow or the drinking of liquids in my Army"... fine admonishings from a long time treadhead.
Mike in Peru

[Rockydog]

Guess I've got to be the odd man out. Yup there are a few kids out there that just don't get it and never will. I grew up with kids just like them 50 years ago. There are also a ton of good kids out there. I know several young couples in their late twenties that are raising nice families. Parents have manners, kids have manners, kids are taught the basics at a young age and know how to count and read far younger than we did. Most of them will be alright in the long run. My wife is in banking and has high school aged part time tellers that have far better instincts than some of the full time 40 year olds she works with. They can smell a bad check etc. as the people are coming through the door to cash them. There's a lot of hope out there. We tend to overlook the good ones as we only remember the pain of the bad ones.

BTW I do a little Prairie Doggin' and Antelope hunting in South Dakota. Don't know why but kids out there in restaurants count your change back to you "backwards" like we were taught to do. When I commented on it to one of them she said that she thought everybody counted change back that way. RD

[SWIAFB]

So Jeff, what color was her eyes ?

[Reg]

And then try to tell them a quarter is two bits--- just look deep into their eyes and you see question marks running off into forever !!!
Was at the bank a week ago , had a handfull of small bills , gave them to one of the younger cashiers and asked for a "C" note--- there went those eyes again.
Am not even going to bring up the subject of what a sawbuck might be !!!!!!

:roll::drinks::Fire:

[blackthorn]

Yes, well---Our slang i.e. "two bits, "C' note or sawbuck" to them is about the same as us trying to interpert one of those dumb text messages! To each generation it's own! Have a great day!

[Jim Flinchbaugh]

There are also a ton of good kids out there. I know several young couples in their late twenties that are raising nice families. Parents have manners, kids have manners, kids are taught the basics at a young age and know how to count and read far younger than we did. RD

We have a bunch of them here too, and every single one of them is HOME SCHOOLED

[MtGun44]

Great point about the good ones. It is much more memorable when someone is an idiot
than when someone does a normal good job because most do a good job.

Lots of good young people, for sure. But there still are some knuckleheads.

Bill

[jblee10]

I miss having my change counted back to me! Now if you use cash, the change usually just come squirting out of a machine. Or if it is handed to you, it is dumped into your hand in one bunch.

[wallenba]

Morning to ya Jeff. Flumoxed? Sounds like a word we need to introduce here.
I know how it is with the young kids and math. The are allowed to use calculators (or so I've heard) in school today. So, when it comes to the old fashioned way, they get a little flustered (flumoxed?). Case in point, a local Burger King (do you have them?) had a computer breakdown and the girl could not make change for me. I learned that the cash register did not even have digits but icons of the food items. Everything was done by the 'puter' she said.

[starmac]

I don't think kids are allowed to use a calculator in school, I think they are required to.

[BOOM BOOM]

HI,
THERE IS 1 MATH TEACHER WHO IS A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS.
Me .
And I get a lot of hate & discontent. They are giving the kids calculators in the 4th grade now. :Fire::Fire:

[thx997303]

Y'all just remember how stupid they are next time you need help figuring out your computers and the like. (Said to those it applies to, if it's not you, ignore it.)

They aren't dumber, they just have placed emphasis on different sections of learning.

[AndyC]

No - they're definitely dumber :D

[Katya Mullethov]

I had a gaggle of teens in here last summer and as one would expect , half were texting . Looking for an icebreaker ,I asked the goofiest and gangliest one "you aint tweetin' are ya ?" , which he vehemently denied . In fact , he protested a bit too greatly .His buddies picked up on this moment of weakness and went to work on him ,questioning his sexuality , lack of experience , etc . Typical guy stuff .

Having given them something to do I went to work selling the ringleader his sundries and upon closing and returning the correct amount of change he leans in with this big grin and says .

"Cool t shirt ......... Is that Yuri Gagarin ? "

"NO youesotericlittleSOB .....it's George PATTON..........yeaaaaah..I like you !" Pointing an accusatory finger at his nose and grinning right back . The rest of his crew were completely oblivious as to what had just transpired .

We got along famously. He's the atypical non-texter . Always fixing something .
http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-50863389838911_2202_8925625

[wallenba]

We will lean on technology too much and it will bite us in the **** someday.
The 'box' is selling us commercials now for our computers to do our typing and spelling (Dragon software). Next it will be it reading for us, then we will forget entirely. This stuff is great for the blind, but dulls our skills. I never used to have trouble with my multiplication tables, but I do now.

[oldgeezershooter]

Morning to ya Jeff. Flumoxed? Sounds like a word we need to introduce here.
I know how it is with the young kids and math. The are allowed to use calculators (or so I've heard) in school today. So, when it comes to the old fashioned way, they get a little flustered (flumoxed?). Case in point, a local Burger King (do you have them?) had a computer breakdown and the girl could not make change for me. I learned that the cash register did not even have digits but icons of the food items. Everything was done by the 'puter' she said.

I thought "Flumoxed" was what you did to your lead pot?

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

in today's America, teachers are afraid to damage children's self esteem by making them think very often or very hard...

Feeling good about yourself, whether there is any real reason to do so is the most important task teachers face.

Rich
even in Idaho

[JeffinNZ]

Well, they're getting worse.

Today I tested the water some more. Miserable failure is all I have report. As the coffee is $3.60 and I had a $5.00 note I took 3 x 20 cent pieces so I could tender $5.60 for a $2.00 coin change. Simple right. My work mate Vanessa told me I was courting disaster. Turns out 'Ness is a very astute young lady.

The noob on the kiosk first asks ME what cup size I have and what discount applies. She puts in the wrong cup size and tries to charge me $4.00. Stop, try again.

Cup size correct; check.
Discount correct; check.
Change; $2.10 for a $3.60 purchase from $5.60 tendered. Wrong.......

Coffee gets made. Hands me my cup with a Latte. I ordered a Flat white (no, that is not a KKK member run down by a truck.)

Cup goes back for correct coffee. Barista hands me a flat white; check......in a takeaway cup. Where is my refillable asks me?

Eventually I get me coffee and leave laughing. Laugh or cry.

[starmac]

I'd say another try or two you will have them figured out. lol

[Rangefinder]

Geeze--I'm not even that old and I'm admittedly turning into a grumpy ol' man--and it is, in fact, primarily due to stupidity. Have plenty of examples much like those already shared, but most recient was in the grocery store. Owed $16.34---or some odd number. Gave the girl $21.34 to get an even $5 back because I hate accumulating a pocket full of change and a wallet full of 1's. Good lord, you'd think I'd just asked her to calculate planetary mass or something. She was calling a manager over when I told her to just enter the amount I gave her and the stupid little machine will tell her I should get $5 back. She didn't believe me, and then had a look of utter shock when it worked out right. WOW, we're doomed. These are the people who vote.

[starmac]

The cashiers and registers, shore put a hurting on the old quick change conman business though. Some of these cashiers would have caused some of them guys to turn themselves in. lol

[.22-10-45]

Hello, Every time I bring a single-shot rifle to my club range..I invariably get questioned..and the first one is ALWAYS: .45-70?? "no"..they get a tiny frown on face... .45-90? "NO"..now you can see distinct worry! .45-100? "no"..now panic sets in.. .45-120? "no"..by this time, they are really sweating..Heck, I had a guy ask if I was shooting .45-70...when in plain view, I had a MTM box of .22 Hornets! Next time I'm asked..I'm going to ask them...Is that your final answer?...what about the .40's? or .44's? and we haven't even started with the .38's &
.32's!

[bob208]

just yestersay i got took no more will i try to get close to the change. wife and i stopped at a fast food place. the rocket scientest took our order bill was $8.48. i handed him $20.50. change should have been $12.02. well i got 11.02 back. it went down hill from there. me you owe me anothere dollor. no i gat you want the recipt says. but i gave you more then that. i gave you the change on the recipt.the recipt said 11.52 . it did not say 11.02. then i got are you making fun of me? no i am just laughing at the joke.

[bbs70]

Some years ago while driving through South Dakota I stopped at Subway and ordered a BLT.
The girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted tomato and bacon on it.

[starmac]

Years ago I worked with a guy and we shared rides to work. Every single morning we would stop at the same mcdonalds, usually with the same girl at the window. He would order an egg mcmuffin, without the egg. It was the very same argument and she would call the manager before she would agree to leave the egg off. This went on every morning for a couple of months while we were on that job. lol

I worked another job, that had a great baked potato joint next to it. They were great and a meal. You could get everything imaginable on your potato.
The whole crew would eat lunch there every day so the manager would check on us to see we were taken care of. I would tell them every day NO pickles and get extra pickles. After I mentioned it to the manager and he told me to just tell them no pickles, my reply was you tell them, they apparently didn't understand me. I ate there free for nearly two weeks, because even though the manager would put my order in himself and threaten to fire the guy, I would still get pickles. lol

[wallenba]

If I recall correctly, when I was a young man coffee was cheap. You would even get a free refill at the local diner. I'm not a coffe drinker but keep it on hand for guests. So I'm thinkin' I'm saving some money it looks like.

[429421Cowboy]

... I hope you guys haven't totally lost faith in my generation... Some pretty discouraging remarks being made about today's youth! Not that i don't agree there are some things about this world that scare the daylights out of me, but don't let them label the rest of us! I know for fact there are at least three of us regular posters here under the age of 20, and we are sure trying to make up for the rest of the world!

[Rangefinder]

^^^Don't take any of it as a direct shot. Just the fact that you're here doing something and learning something with the rest of us that has absolutely nothing to do with a touch screen, wifi signal, etc is enough for me to cast you in a different pot aside from all the junk alloys who happened to start their role among the population around the same time. ;)

[Blacksmith]

+1000 on our young people being allright. But they are going to have to carry more of a burden than previous generations.

I teach youngsters to shoot and the current crop of students is just as good as earlier ones there just are not as many of the good ones as there once was.

[starmac]

There are plenty of good and god fearing kids, we just hear more about the worst of the lot.

Many, many people don't want their kids to have to work or have any responsibilities, and also want them to have much more than they did coming up, this is all well and good, but isn't doing our youth any favors, it is much easier to get over the lumps and bumps of life when you are younger.

[JeffinNZ]

Is that a lone voice I hear?

LOL.

Happened again today. Made an appointment to see the guy who overseas the opeation. I said I want to be proactive and try and help his operation as someone from the outside looking in. He seemed genuinely interested.

[wallenba]

... I hope you guys haven't totally lost faith in my generation... Some pretty discouraging remarks being made about today's youth! Not that i don't agree there are some things about this world that scare the daylights out of me, but don't let them label the rest of us! I know for fact there are at least three of us regular posters here under the age of 20, and we are sure trying to make up for the rest of the world!

Don't worry. It's a 'geezer' thing. My dad's generation said the same thing about us hippies, and my grandpa said that about my dad's zootsuiter's. All the same.:wink:

[CLAYPOOL]

AW please be carefull here in "ILLINOIS" as they may decide that you are trying a scam or fake bills and they may call for the "Localls" to check you out...

[Beekeeper]

Was at the local Sears yesterday to but a wood rasp (they have good ones).
Young cashier asked if I wanted to put it on my sears credit card , said no, visa , no, Master card , no I'll pay cash.
Dear in the headlights look, tears, call Manager,.
Seems she was never taught how to take cash ,only credit cards, aparently new Sears policy (Plastic over cash).
Manager seemed to feel I was in the wrong asking to pay cash.
Left rasps on the counter and walked out.
Will not go back either.


beekeeper

[1Shirt]

Being a tea/coffee drinker myself, have always considered Expresso's and like drinks to be sort of overpriced, over rated luxury items. To each his own I guess. How ever when it comes to the I.Q. of the younger generation, there are a number of reasons why they seem dumb in my estimation.
1. They are told they are smarter than older generations.
2. They have to many gadgets that think for them.
3. They believe CBS/NBC/CBS
4. They don't listen to talk radio.
5. Because of Child labor laws they don't know how to work, and don't start until
much later in life than we did.
6. The public schools have been dumbed down.
7. They have been propagandized by PETA/Green energy/Political Correctness
etc.etc.etc.
Feel free to add to the list!!!!!
1Shirt!

[wallenba]

Some kids are a little slow on the uptake too. They don't know when you are kidding them.
My nephew's band got a mention in the entertainment section of the Detroit news years ago. I was asked to pick up a half dozen or so copies. I put six copies on the counter at my local convenience store. The youngster asked "why so many?". I replied, "sometimes I like to read the paper more than once". He reacted with a simple, "oh".
That really made me think about who will lead this country in the future. Surely, not him.

[thx997303]

He may have just figured you're bat **** crazy and decided not to mention it wallenba. :bigsmyl2:

[wallenba]

He may have just figured you're bat **** crazy and decided not to mention it wallenba. :bigsmyl2:

Hmmmmn....could be. [smilie=s: