I dont do fractions

[Tony in SD]

A friend of mine hired a high school aged farm kid, to help him work on planter meters. He told the kid to go get him two 9/16 wrenches. The kid responded by saying."I don't do fractions." Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

 

[Caryc]

A friend of mine hired a high school aged farm kid, to help him work on planter meters. He told the kid to go get him two 9/16 wrenches. The kid responded by saying."I don't do fractions." Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

If I was him, I'd say "Well, you don't work here either". By the way, does he know what "two" means?

 

[Mule Meat]

Shouldn't be to hard on the kid.
How often do you actually see fractions being used in today's world? On old vehicles, construction and drill bits. Nearly everything has went to decibels or metric measurements.

Kids aren't taught to work on antique cars and trucks in shop classes these days. And when was the last time an automobile was sold in the US that used fractional fasteners?

Us that still have a use for a 9/16th wrench are becoming antiques like the equipment we work on.

 

[Eric in IL]

A friend of mine hired a high school aged farm kid, to help him work on planter meters. He told the kid to go get him two 9/16 wrenches. The kid responded by saying."I don't do fractions." Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

That's okay grasshopper, bring me two five hundred sixty two and a half thousandths wrenches then.

 

[Janicholson]

Shouldn't be to hard on the kid.
How often do you actually see fractions being used in today's world? On old vehicles, construction and drill bits. Nearly everything has went to decibels or metric measurements.

Kids aren't taught to work on antique cars and trucks in shop classes these days. And when was the last time an automobile was sold in the US that used fractional fasteners?

Us that still have a use for a 9/16th wrench are becoming antiques like the equipment we work on.

Sound level going up! decimals going down. Jim

 

[38 Sears Roebuck]

Here's a good one . When I was hauling for a major feed company here, I was a driver trainer. We would deliver the processed feed and then sometimes backhaul the customers grain. I had a new trainee with me one day. And after unloading the feed we reloaded with the customers corn. So after loading and heading back to the mill he asked me how much the corn was worth. I told him it was about $$ per bushel. He looked at me and said "what's a bushel". Well I about fell out of the truck. And this was about 20 years ago. I really just wanted to dump him on the side of the road right then and there. How can someone be so stupid.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

Shouldn't be to hard on the kid.
How often do you actually see fractions being used in today's world? On old vehicles, construction and drill bits. Nearly everything has went to decibels or metric measurements.

Kids aren't taught to work on antique cars and trucks in shop classes these days. And when was the last time an automobile was sold in the US that used fractional fasteners?

Us that still have a use for a 9/16th wrench are becoming antiques like the equipment we work on.

Agree, stop being hard on the young people because they have no experience twisting wrenches?
How many old people can convert Millimeters to inches?
Many people are mathematically challenged.

 

[DRussell]

Here's a good one . When I was hauling for a major feed company here, I was a driver trainer. We would deliver the processed feed and then sometimes backhaul the customers grain. I had a new trainee with me one day. And after unloading the feed we reloaded with the customers corn. So after loading and heading back to the mill he asked me how much the corn was worth. I told him it was about $$ per bushel. He looked at me and said "what's a bushel". Well I about fell out of the truck. And this was about 20 years ago. I really just wanted to dump him on the side of the road right then and there. How can someone be so stupid.

Are you sure he didn't mean how many pounds are in a bushel?

 

[GChief]

How can someone be so stupid

We are very detached from our food souces, have been for decades. I am sure there are plenty of people that are clueless as to what a bushel is. Is it really stupidity? Ignorant yes, stupid no. Might be stupid calling out stupidity when its really only just ignorance

And most of this is really just generational bashing, go back and ask our grandparents how stupid we were. Same as it ever was.

 

[John in Ct]

The kid is either dumb, stupid or both.

 

[hurleyjd]

A friend of mine hired a high school aged farm kid, to help him work on planter meters. He told the kid to go get him two 9/16 wrenches. The kid responded by saying."I don't do fractions." Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Should have been a teaching moment how else can you pass all of the knowledge you have in your head to someone else.

 

[GChief]

Should have been a teaching moment how else can you pass all of the knowledge you have in your head to someone else.

This ^^^

I did 23 yrs in the Navy, kids have always been ignorant, even us. I had plenty of teaching moments with "my" sailors and I always took full advantage of them to educate.

For some, its just eastier complain about it.

 

[B. White]

The school my father went to only went to 9th or 10th grade back then. He could figure lumber to build you a house or any other mathematic challenge. WW II draft got him and put him in charge of the motor pool on Saipan, which back then I believe including keeping things running plus operating motor graders and repairing communications lines as needed. His last job was as a jet powerplant lead mechanic with no further education. I was around a few others back then that could do stuff in their head way faster than me. I wouldn't blame the kid too much, unless he has an attitude and doesn't want to learn. I do blame the system.

 

[Mule Meat]

Here's a good one . When I was hauling for a major feed company here, I was a driver trainer. We would deliver the processed feed and then sometimes backhaul the customers grain. I had a new trainee with me one day. And after unloading the feed we reloaded with the customers corn. So after loading and heading back to the mill he asked me how much the corn was worth. I told him it was about $$ per bushel. He looked at me and said "what's a bushel". Well I about fell out of the truck. And this was about 20 years ago. I really just wanted to dump him on the side of the road right then and there. How can someone be so stupid.

I was never taught the first thing in school about bushels, pecks and such.

 

[scootergmc]

I was never taught the first thing in school about bushels, pecks and such.

Nor was I.

Assuming someone is stupid for naivete is in itself just that. We all learn somewhere. I went to work on a water drill rig when I was 18. You know what I knew about drill rigs? Nothing. Did my trainer think I was stupid? Absolutely, and made it a point to tell me. I learned things, but drilling wells wasn't one of them. Some life lessons come in the weirdest circumstances. Glad I learned that one early on.

 

[T.R.K.]

It is what you learn. (And remember, for even you guys there was a first time for everything, even if you learned it as a kid.) Or what you have been exposed to.
I can recall one job where I got to the point where could total the weights of the scrap cloth bags as quick as I read the numbers. But I can't do that in my head any more. Another job as a draftsman, I had all the deciimal equivalents for fractions memorized down to 1/32s. and could convert back and forth from decimal to fractions with no problems. That was then. I can't do either of those jobs like that any more. Not only do you have to learn it, but if you don't use it you loose it.

 

[Jim in LA]

Local restaurant has had trouble finding competent waitresses (college age girls). One of the questions asked was " If a customer orders a half dozen shrimp, how many do you bring them? " A startling number did not know. The parents of one of the girls rejected confronted the restaurnt owners and did not believe them until they asked their daughter and she told them she didn't know the answer.

 

[GChief]

Local restaurant has had trouble finding competent waitresses (college age girls). One of the questions asked was " If a customer orders a half dozen shrimp, how many do you bring them? " A startling number did not know. The parents of one of the girls rejected confronted the restaurnt owners and did not believe them until they asked their daughter and she told them she didn't know the answer.

And that's the parents fault!!!

 

[flying belgian]

Some kids are just naturally curious, ask questions and want to learn. Others just coast through life without being curious about anything. Either way they both make it to the end.

 

[jwal10]

Fractions were easy but I don't remember "studying" them in school. I had no math in school after 8th grade. I took off to shear sheep full time after Christmas of 8th grade. When I came back in April, I was totally lost in math class for the rest of the year. They had moved on to Algebra and A+BxC did not = anything. I never did get Algebra. When I went to get certificates in Water treatment, the tests had a lot of math. All questions were multiple choice. Somehow in my head, I could figure out the closest answer in my head and passed the tests. At the plant, we had formula's all worked out for making changes in chemical dosages. I passed my Water Treatment IV Certificate, in just 4 years, 1 time each as quickly as they were available....James

P.S, I still do not have any metric wrenches. There are a few 1/4" drive metric sockets in a very cheap set I keep in the car, never used one.

I left home at 12. Dad said I would never amount to anything. I was a sickly kid and learned to garden and cook with Grandma. Dad did teach me to work, not by telling me, but showing me. My brothers and I had jobs, but as a family, we all worked together. I started working for the neighbor dairy, mucking barns for crossbred heifer calves and a quart of milk morning and night, from his heifers when I was 8. Holstein and Hereford cross. I had 20 cows when I left home, and 60 ewes from 8 ewe lambs my parents bought me after I had polio, to strengthen my legs chasing them all over the hills on the farm....James