Stochastic Contemplations.

[worth1]

Just when you think somebody knows what they're talking about they come out and say the US developed the metric system but refused to use it.
Say what?
This wasn't a discussion on the metric system but more of a what's wrong with America rant on a YouTube discussion.
In fact the French developed the metric system.

Just another reason to fact check people before you follow every word they say as truth.
Did this guy believe what he said, was he attempting to deceive or was he ignorant?

[rxkeith]

apparently, melody is the go to gal for body bags.
i got another text, this one from eric asking if she had body bags she wasn't using.
i texted him back. this is keith, not melody, pharmacist at blank drugs. whats up with all the body bags.
ryan was looking for some the other day.
the reply,

sorry


keith

[rxkeith]

i saw online where cvs pharmacists in kansas walked over working conditions.
good for them. pharmacy has become an increasingly harder job to do especially if
you are employed by some of the big chains. they cut your hours to maximize profits on
shrinking margins. just the regular amount of work to be done is overwhelming. now, add in
flu shots, covid shots, rsv shots, shingles, tetanus, and pneumonia shots. it becomes an impossible
situation. i hope more pharmacists start walking out in protest. they don't have anything to lose.
i am happy to be at the tail end of my career.


keith

[Sue_CT]

Keith, when I was picking up a script it was late in the day, less than hour before closing and I asked about a vaccine. Think it was Shingrex. Anyway, I asked if it was busy or too late to get one. They said no, come right in. I was surprised they weren't busy. I see how busy they usually are and how stressed they can get and I feel bad. This was at Walgreens. The pharmacy is open 12 hours. Do they likely work 12 hour shifts or do they break it up into two shifts? I have spoken to several pharmacists, esp in the hospital and there really doesn't seem to be a good environment for them work in, either in a hospital or with a chain. I hope they get some improvements in working conditions.

[worth1]

Oh my God how we as a country have fallen from grace.
There was a young new guy I met yesterday on the job.
I was trying to get him to put up electrical boxes in the middle of the hallway.
To find the middle of the hallway you need to know what the width is.
I put the tape measure on the floor and got 90 inches.
He was confused.
I had to explain to him it was more easy than measuring the ceiling.
Then I asked him what half of 90 was.
He didn't know and said he wasn't good at math.
I asked what is half of 80 and he thought for a minute and squeaked out 40.
I then asked what 80 plus what makes 90.
He didn't know but finally came up with 10.
What's half of 10.
He said 5.
Okay now what's half of 90.
He still didn't get it.
I told him 45.
Now what's 5 minus 2.
He didn't know right off.
I said 3.
So what's 45 minus 2 and he finally got 43.
I explained to him to mark the board on the ceiling at 43 and put the 4 inch box on that mark and it would be in the middle.
Totally flabbergasted.

Next came fractions.
I asked him how many 8ths were 8n and inch and he didn't know.
I just told you the answer its 8.
This was because I wanted the box to hang down from the ceiling a bit so I wouldn't have to get long screws later on.
The Sheetrock is 5/8 inch the c channel going on the board first is 1/2 inch.
1/2 plus 5/8 equals 1 1/8.
How on earth can you figure that out so fast he exclaimed.
99 percent of the people that come on the job with me don't want to do this use a measuring tape or figure simple math or do any kind of fractions.
I use my hammer as a fast measuring device so everything is even when I put up hangers.
They don't get it, they don't understand why I want things to look nice and even.
Has the world at least in the US actually become that lazy and stupid?
I feel like a frigging dinosaur around these people.

[Sue_CT]

Worth, what you are looking at are the qualifications required by the people hiring for these jobs. Do they require a high school diploma? Do they require a GED? Do they require them to pass a basic math test? Currently the high school graduation rate is at an all time high of 81%. If the people doing the hiring don't require a simple math test or a high school diploma and they offer very low pay, what they are going to get are ones who are not qualified to do anything that pays any better and have the least education. You can't pass final exams in high school and you can't pass a GED exam if you can't do simple math. So they are probably hiring the least educated people out there. Probably not fair to judge the entire country based on the least educated 15-20%, if that is what you are working with.

[worth1]

Worth, what you are looking at are the qualifications required by the people hiring for these jobs. Do they require a high school diploma? Do they require a GED? Do they require them to pass a basic math test? Currently the high school graduation rate is at an all time high of 81%. If the people doing the hiring don't require a simple math test or a high school diploma and they offer very low pay, what they are going to get are ones who are not qualified to do anything that pays any better and have the least education. You can't pass final exams in high school and you can't pass a GED exam if you can't do simple math. So they are probably hiring the least educated people out there. Probably not fair to judge the entire country based on the least educated 15-20%, if that is what you are working with.

I've often considered that as well about the hiring process.
But it's been a serious problem for me for many years.
People either learn it and forget it after the testing.
All of these people graduated from highschool.
I have begged companies in the past to let me interview these guys and have never been allowed to.
They said my standards were to high.

What we're getting now are warm bodies they expect me to train.
Where in hell am I supposed to start, grade school.
The wages they start these guys out here are well beyond what others are paying.
Even the high wage people that are supervisors are flabbergasted at this crazy stuff I come up with.
My direct boss that hired me could have answered every one of those questions before they got out of my mouth.
The GC superintendent the other day told me how professional my work was.

I told him if you put up crap your work would be scrutinized and I didn't want that.
I want my work to stand out above every one else.

[Cole_Robbie]

I don't think employers can give math tests without running afoul of labor and hiring laws. What happens is people of color tend to do worse on those tests, and it then leads to what the law considers a discriminatory hiring practice.

[worth1]

I don't think employers can give math tests without running afoul of labor and hiring laws. What happens is people of color tend to do worse on those tests, and it then leads to what the law considers a discriminatory hiring practice.

I don't think they need to give math tests if they did I would probably fail it.
What they need to do is ask questions about things and if they are willing to learn.
They always say they are willing to learn but learn what is the question they should ask.
The last guy and several before him I asked if they knew anything about electricity.
They always say they do.
I then ask what's the difference between AC and DC current.
They don't know.
I then rather rudely tell them they don't know anything about electricity.

One guy said he could bend conduit the other day but was rusty.
I handed him the bender and he didn't know crap about bending conduit.
Not one thing.
He didn't even know you were supposed to put your foot on the bender.
I don't like people lying to me.

Years ago if you wanted a job on a framing crew they would test you.
If you couldn't drive a nail in after setting it in one or at most two hits you probably wasn't going to get the job.
There were many more waiting in line for that Job.
Here is a little bragging rights I have with something I made for a fishing reel someone gave me.
It was missing this tensioning cap.
It has 48 threads per inch inside of it.
I ground by hand the cutting tool to cut the threads on my lathe.
It was made from a solid scrap brass rod I salvaged from a big valve.
It took two attempts to get it right and I taught myself how to do it.
It was a reel that cost over a hundred dollars and most people would have thrown it away.
I caught a big gar fish with the reel right after I fixed it.

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[Sue_CT]

I had to take one. It was a pharmacy test and you had to be able to make conversions and fractions and convert from one system to another. So guess what? You have to be able to do the job, and do it safely, no matter your race or color. It would only run afoul of labor laws I believe if you did not need to be able to pass that test to do your job. Asking for a math test for someone to mow lawns for a landscape company, for instance. But I don't think labor laws prevent you from requiring you to be able to do the job. Maybe, but doesn't seem possible. When I went back to bedsde nursing after working on medical cases for a law firm they made me take a competency exam. It was for a med surg nursing position but the exam included everything from maternity to pediatrics.

You would not fail a BASIC math test Worth. I am talking addition, subtraction, simple fractions. Maybe an 8th grade level math test, no algebra, geometry, etc. Like simple word problems like where would put a box on a 50 foot wall if you wanted it in the middle, and the box is 8 inches wide?

I just edited this because I spelled competency wrong!

[worth1]

@Sue_CT
You don't really need to know math to do my job but it makes life so much better.
It allows you to figure out things and not be wasteful.
It keeps you from having to submit questions back to an engineer or designer many times.
Stuff that would delay the job.
An example is on the drawings.
They are 1/8 equals 1 foot.
How many feet is it to a certain place.
You put the ruler or tape measure on the drawings and measure out inches and fractions.
It's 12 inches dawn the hallway.
12x8 equals 96 so it's 96 feet from one end to the other.
Let's see what I have with my wire supplies.
Oh here's one that has 120 feet left on it
We'll use it.
These guys won't bother and get a new 1000 foot spool of wire because they don't want to bother with it
Our wire is unbelievably expensive these days.

The last company I worked for and still in good graces with had a spring BBQ.
The head man had enough money that was collected from scrap wire to give out big checks to several people that were voted as whatever of the year.
He was taking about that scrap wire in such a way as to how expensive it it was.
I had to open my big mouth naturally.
I told him in front of the whole company that I wired up an entire riser room with a thousand foot of scrap wire left on spools that would have ended up at the scrap yard.

He said I really appreciate it but these people getting checks probably don't and laughed.

[Cole_Robbie]

There's math in lawns if you have to quote customers a price based on square footage of lawn.

And I can see competency testing where it relates to not getting sued, because they screened people who might kill someone out of negligence. But on the same priority of not getting sued, the law frowns upon any hiring practice that renders a discriminatory result, and intent is not a factor. The burden of proof flips in a lawsuit if a company has to defend such a test. They have to basically prove their innocence, which is a position no one wants to be in. So that's why we don't see a lot of testing of job applicants.

[worth1]

I took a test many years ago in the 80s to go to work for a huge company.
It was 3M or Motorola.
I can't remember which one.
All it was a test to see how fast you could put objects into matching holes or some such rot.
One was putting pins in holes as fast as you could.
I spent what seemed like all morning in that hell hole it didn't require any education or abilities other than fast.
Basically testing you for monotonous assembly line work.
There must have been a 50 people in there sitting at tables next to each other.
I never got called back thank god.
I'm pretty sure that job is either being done in China or by a robot now.
More than likely outdated and doesn't exist anymore.

[rxkeith]

i am still ticked that i was required to take first level calculus to get into pharmacy school.
i can see the need for calculus in the engineering field, bridges need stay up, buildings shouldn't fall down.
launching something into orbit, calculus is going to come in handy.
but, pharmacy??? i have not used or needed to use calculus ONCE in nearly forty years of work. you do need to know
how to move the decimal point if you are compounding a product. thats about as complicated as pharmacy math gets.
pharmaco kinetics is more involved. you'll be using that in the clinical setting to calculate dosing, and interval on drugs that
have a narrow therapeutic window. still, its not calculus, and there are computer programs where you just plug in the info
required, and ta da, answer.

keith

[worth1]

How about Roman numerals, did I miss something?
The only thing I can think they are used for anymore is the super bowl and I couldn't care less about the super bowl.

[worth1]

Here's someone you don't want to hire.
Take a look at that kitchen at Popeyes.
Good lord.

[rxkeith]

new item on the menu?

[karstopography]

Yea, that’s who I want handling my dinner, SMH.

[worth1]

I knew a person that left a gallon of paint thinner on a stove burner.
They tried to take it off but the plastic stretched and broke.
Paint thinner went everywhere and burned the house down.
What the devil is paint thinner doing on the kitchen stove?

[worth1]

Definitely a thief on the job site.
Another poor guy just got his Milwaukee battery stolen out of his charger.
This things cost well over 100 dollars.