I work in an industry that requires basic math skills, a little bit of effort and an awareness of your surroundings. At the recycling depot I work at, we sort the customers returnables for them. they dump on a table and we start grabbing everything we can as fast as we can. Some people will bring in so much stuff that having to count 1000 beer cans or pop cans or bottles of wine, well maybe not thousands of bottles of whine, but everything else and more is included as being capable of being brought in by a single customer. Let us just say, it may take a while to sort. There is a trick to it, and if you can count to infinity and multiply that number by on average four (4), then the pile will dwindle fairly quickly. you can imagine how busy we might get if three or four customers come in with huge loads at the same time, plus you have the mini loads in between.
Right now I would say at my place of work that we are short staffed, although the number of people working each shift on average is four, which is plenty to handle even the busiest day, but sadly on average two of those persons working each day have a mathematical disability the cause of which is a lack of sufficient education in math during their school years. I am talking men 30 - 60 that can't count to 100 by pulling four items at a time and putting them inside a bag. That equates to counting to twenty-five (25) then multiplying by four (4), how sad is that. We have a twelve (12) year old boy that started working during the summer and he is way ahead of these guys, both in mathematical abilities and in work ethic, well I shouldn't say that so emphatically, the one old guy is native to another country so besides having to translate everything he needs to say in English he has to do that for numbers as well. So I give him a little bit more lee-way in my assessment of his abilities and work ethic. He actually works too hard sometimes which confuses him more, so I have to remind him to go have a smoke and take a break for five minutes. I do the same for the other guy, but he has white privilege and so I expect more from him. He says he is a dyslexic, so working with numbers really shouldn't be his main priority for earning a living, and in this job, it has limited him to counting in a basket and he often times miscounts and has to recount it all again. The other guy never has to recount what he does, he just has to be able to spew out the frikkin number and item before the store closes. It is sometimes laughable, but not when we are crazy busy, to watch him try to get the words out.
Now in my case, I could be doing something else, which I am in fact doing. I work as a Background Performer on locally shot film and television productions, which when my film calls conflict with my regular day job assigned day, the boss let's me off that day to work in film, no argument. So, whereas before I got a job and tried to work film in, this time after I got laid off, I decided to work film and then find a job, it worked out pretty well, and really at a time I needed it. I give credit to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for arranging it that I can have my day job and pursue my passion for acting while still being able to pay my bills, it didn't usually work out that way on previous attempts, and so again I must give all credit to God and his Grace, Mercy, Providence and Holy Spirit. The point is, I do a good job and I pull my weight, whereas it is almost pathetic how bad or almost useless a dyslexic 60 year old man who can't count to 100 is working in the industry I work in.
In all fairness to him, and kudos for trying, because I have worked there since the beginning of the year, and since then at least five people have quit, two or three have not shown up after taking the job or left when they went for their lunch. So for someone with that much against them to stick it out I have to shake his hand, he is trying, and he is, he is learning about the products somewhat, but still you know. He isn't mentally handicapped or physically disabled any more than I am, it is a direct result of a negligent education system here in Canada where I live. Even though I get frustrated sometimes with these guys, I do try to teach them methods to improve their skills without forcing them or enticing them to hurry up, but a basket can only hold so much so lets get those memory cells working eh!
As a side note, I got a guy who met working on film a job at my workplace, I warned him about the speed we had to work at, what it entailed and so on to prepare him for his first day. Well this guy is 36 years old, not dyslexic, but troubled by a math deficiency and the basic concept of work ethic. On film sets he gets right in there and will show great emotion, but in the actual workplace, he is not as enthusiastic and as a consequence was let go and then re-hired on my request. I had talked to him about coming back, because it was a good source of income if you weren't on a film set, and on average I think we both only do maximum 5 days a month, if that, so we need a steady income. Anyway, he said yup, yup yup and when he showed up for work the next time, he was gone before lunch for multiple errors committed while counting and for not listening to the boss when she instructed him to do something. Not sure what that was about, but in any event, his lack of math and work ethic at thirty-six years of age was a sad example of the final product that comes out of our education system.