Maet Deparment: the Failures of Public Education
I am an angry and bitter person totally disgusted at the shape of modern humanity. Misanthropic from years of dealing with the public in a retail setting, I do have some fun stories. People are fucking stupid. The public education system in this country is an absolute failure. We produce mindless bodies inhabiting the earth with no greater conception of reality than to procreate and spawn more mindless babies who, by the age of thirteen, still have not mastered the art of tying their own shoes. And are already spawning more mindless babies. While I would not suggest my upbringing in an evangelical private school and learning “facts” like the world is only 6,000 years old and that evolution is not real, y’all should do better for yourselves. Open a book. Read. Watch a documentary. We literally have a super-computer in our pockets with access to endless information. And somehow we are dumber for it.
Over the years I have dealt with a lot of questions, screaming, and tantrums that could have been avoided with a proper 3rd grade education. I had a lady who wanted a dozen oysters.
“How many oysters I get for a dozen?”
“Twelve.”
“You mean to tell me I only get twelve oysters for a dozen!?”
“Yes. A dozen literally means twelve unless you’re talking about a baker’s dozen.”
That last reference was lost on her. She stormed away cussing and muttering under her breath, without any oysters.
Another great time I remember is when I was working in Greenwood, South Carolina. This lady picked up a turkey breast from the frozen bunker and began screaming at my bossman.
“Why this turkey ain’t got no legs!”
Bossman was so angry he was red in the face.
When I worked for my last company, we seasoned various meats and added 50 cents per pound to the price of the product. I had one guy working for me who, when I explained this to him, replied “can you show me how to do it?” He could not calculate how to add 50 cents despite having a super computer in his pocket and being 56 years old.
I had another guy who could not differentiate between cooked and raw foods. He would weigh up a customer’s seafood order raw then steam it and put it back in the tray he weighed it up in raw. Customers complained. I went over this point…over and over…and fucking over…
“You can’t put cooked food into a tray that held raw product.”
“But it’s her tray.”
“Yes, it’s her tray, but it was raw shrimp in that tray. You can’t put something cooked that someone is going to eat back in that tray because it could make them sick.”
“But it’s her tray.”
“Look, don’t do it. Get a new tray for the cooked product.”
“But it’s her tray. For her order.”
He was 45 years old. He could not understand that just because it was “her tray” that he weighed the raw shrimp in, that it shouldn’t be “her tray” after he steamed the shrimp for her. This was an on-going battle and a consequence of hiring only people willing to work for $8/hr.
Another kid I had working for me once dumped the medium-sized shrimp and the large-sized shrimp into the same sink to thaw out. I caught him picking through them to separate them and asked “what the fuck are you doing!?”
“Yeah, I didn’t think that out.”
Which would have made sense if he didn’t do it a second time. This was the same kid, 19-years old, who could not understand the difference between a freezer and a cooler. He would put refrigerated items in the freezer, which had to be thrown away, and put frozen items in the cooler which thawed and had to be thrown away. One day I asked him “where do you put the milk at home?—in the refrigerator or in the freezer?” He felt insulted by the question. “Duh! In the refrigerator!”
“Well, why can’t you do that here!?” I yelled.
Simple arithmetic is far beyond the comprehension of the masses. I get phone calls and the only response after I answer “how may I help you?” is “crab legs.” Not a question. Simply a statement. What about them? “Do you have them?” Yes. “How much are they?” $9.99 a pound. “How much would it be for four pounds?”
“Well, if you round up to $10/lb. then four times ten would be $40.”
“Oh.” [Hangs up the phone without a goodbye, thanks, or whatever.]
I don’t understand how people function. How they wake up in the morning and tie their shoes or put on their pants the right way. I’ve dealt with 50 year-old people who asked me at my former company “what meat bundles do you sell?” Well they’re up here on poster board on the wall, pick one. “I can’t read.” What the fuck? You’re a grandparent and don’t even wear glasses and you can’t read in the 2020’s? That’s your fucking problem. My grandfather had a 7th grade education and dyslexia and he could read well enough to run a $100,000 a year painting business. No excuses.
The more you work with the public, the more you realize we were never meant to survive as a species. Technology, which should have boosted us up, has done nothing more than to leave us more stupid and entitled. I don’t need to know how much 10 times 4 is; I expect YOU to do that for me.
Deep down at my center, I am an asshole. Unrepentant. At my last company, the thing that irked me the most was misspelled and grammatically incorrect emails from the big bosses. I remember one I received from the district manager. I sent him back a reply he would have had to use a dictionary to decipher. Big, fancy, educated words. He called my assistant store manager.
“I hate Josh. He’s so fucking smart. What is the fuck is he doing working here?”
I’m a highly educated underachiever. What can I say? A lot of wrong turns and dirt roads. Maybe one day I’ll make it to the highway.
The moral: do better for yourselves. Education doesn’t end at Senior Year. It’s a life-long process. Read a book. And if you can’t read, learn.
Also…fuck you, Justin, if you’re reading this…
Highly educated underachiever. Love that!
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