It’s better to read than to count
Would you react if someone said anything similar to this:
At a meeting with a client the PM says:
- I brought a finance geek because I’m very bad on business and economy. Gosh, I can’t even buy something in the supermarket. My husband is doing all that complex stuff.
At the restaurant:
- Oh, can’t you, Steven, read the menu? I’m not good on characters.
I bet you would, but it’s perfectly all right to say:
At a meeting with a client the PM says:
- I brought a tech geek because I’m very bad on all those technical things. Gosh, I can’t even start the micro wave. My husband is doing all that complex stuff.
At the restaurant:
- Oh, can’t you, Steven, split the check? I’m not good on numbers.
Why can you get sympathy(sp?) by being bad on math/tech but considered stupid if your humanoria skills are bad?
Stumble It!
Reading is a basic skill, it does not require much concentration to accomplish and it’s free. It’s also much easier to decide what to order when you read the course descriptions by yourself (often with pictures) instead of trying to remember what the other person said.
Splitting a check in not difficult either, even you are drunk. In the worst case you can always use the calculator in your cell phone :) The problem is that usually people order different types and amounts of food which are priced differently. The result is that one person ordered for 30% more than the other one. So if the bill is for 50$, you can split it like 20$/30$ (instead of 23$/27$), which is approximately the fair split, and does not require small bills or coins.
To be honest, I think the matter that reading dosen’t require much concentration is just a matter of practice. When I see young humans that newly learnt the magic of reading their concentration is total. They read character by character and it takes them long time to get the whole word not to mention the sentence. This is then improving everytime they read something, until they get the skills to be able to read a menu without concentration. If they had practiced math, which I believe is another basic skill, then they would have no problem splitting the check.
But, what I tried to put light on in my post was that it’s socially accepted and even a bit ‘up-nosed’ to not understand technique and/or math and people sometimes even braggs about it. But the opposite would only be considered as a low-educated imbecill prick.