Ode to IBM

If it were not for a company called International Business Machines, aka IBM, where would this world be?

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to IBM for the technology that rules our lives today. Everything we do in our daily lives as well as everything we have to put up with in our daily lives is in some way because of IBM.

Typewriters (remember them) were taken to the peak level thanks to an electric typewriter manufactured by IBM.

Data storage and processing made possible because of IBM

IBM brought the first personal computer (The PC) into our homes some 25 years ago. That revolution has evolved into a major part of our daily lives at home and at work. Our ability to communicate online by your reading this blog that I am writing is only one of many small things we can thank IBM for. Or you can curse IBM for it, depending on your opinion. I can thank IBM for my ability to express my thoughts about the good, the bad and the amusing results of their actions.

So I guess you are wondering what the hell am I talking about.

IBM made shopping as we know it today very easy. They invented the first supermarket scanner so you don’t have to read little price stickers and manually punch in the numbers. Most retailers have cash registers manufactured by IBM or use programs created by IBM. Those cash registers make it so easy for the person paid to use the machine. The machine tells the so-called “cashiers” the prices, the total and even how much change to give back to the customer.

So what happens when technology has a little malfunction? The “cashier” actually has to think for themselves. Oh what a tragedy! The cashier may have to do something so difficult like figuring out how much change to give to the customer. They may have know how to count! Oh the humanity.

I had to witness a great ordeal tonight while shopping at the “mega mart super center” place where you can buy everything from food to underwear to cat food or goldfish to feed to the cat. (kidding) You know the place. I am avoiding saying the name of the store, but by now anyone with an eighth of a brain should know what store I am talking about. And that “eighth of a brain” person may just be more intelligent than the average employee of the “mega mart super center”.

An employee of this store had a meltdown tonight. Everything went well right until I gave this person some money. The total was $6.10 and I gave the employee $6.25. And for some reason the cashier’s little fat fingers entered $66.25 as my payment and the IBM cash register told the employee that my change would be $60.15. Somehow this confused the employee who knew that she did not owe me $60.00 in change. (glad she knew that much) but it took a few minutes of frustration before the cashier realized that she only owed me FIFTEEN CENTS.

The sad thing is that I encounter situations like this all of the time. One time, I remember a cashier actually borrowing a calculator to figure out the exact change for a $9.00 order from a $10 bill. Or what about the store clerk who struggled to figure out 6% sales tax on a $10 order. (I am not making this up)

IBM has made it possible for a stores to hire a complete mathematical idiots (or idiots in general). People who can’t understand simple math enough to make change when needed.

Thanks IBM for making life what it is today. Convenient and amusing at the same time.