You might think that if you called a New Haven-based taxi company and asked that a cab be sent to Yale Station, the US Post Office in the middle of the Yale campus, that request could be easily met.
You might think that.
You'd be wrong.
I needed to be on the 6:53 to Grand Central, so after parking my car at the lot near my office I called the cab company. It's only a 20-25 minute walk but I had a backpack and was hoping to have time for a coffee, so I called. And then I walked. "I'm sorry sir, you need to call back with a street address. "But it's the US Post office on Elm Street, between High and College!" "I'm sorry sir."
Yeah, I'm sorry too. I'm sorry that computers are creating a nation of idiots. Thinking is just not something a lot of people are required to do anymore. The dispatcher knew her job; she might have even known the streets of New Haven -- certainly her drivers do -- but she was unable to do the thinking required to send me a cab.
Many of you have had the experience of giving the extra penny to a clerk when the bill is, say, $6.66. The younger the clerk is, the less likely he is to know what to do. Luckily technology allows him to enter $7.01 into the computer; otherwise, you'd be waiting for the cows.
I was in Richmond, Virginia, last week, visiting Isaac, my favorite 12 year-old. I was stunned to learn that his school doesn't require kids to learn their "times" tables. Stunned! How can anyone argue that this is not essential knowledge? Sure, you can figure it out, or Google it -- but how much of your lifetime are you going to waste doing that?
I suppose ranting about the end of civilization as we know it is what one does after a certain age. But the crumbling is happening at an alarming rate. Am I the only one to notice?
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