Tuesday 23 February 2010

How I know GCSEs mean diddly-squat

A grasp of basic arithmetic is important when running a business. It's not that hard, just a bit of addition and subtraction and multiplication, right? I was in top set at Maths, and so was Kate P. Top set out of 6-7 sets as well, so we weren't daft. I got a B for GCSE. I don't know what Kate got but it'll be a C or above. This is how our conversation went on Saturday:

Rowan: So, I think I'm going to get a book binder for all the left over covers of the books I use
Kate: Great idea
Rowan: Yeah they are £50 for the machine, so I think I could sell notebooks for £5 each, but I'd have to sell 100 before I made my money back on the machine alone
Kate: Rowan, you wouldn't have to sell 100! Just 20!
Rowan: Oh well, that's easier

[PAUSE]

Kate: You wouldn't even have to sell 20 you'd have to sell 10.
Rowan: Oh good grief, yes.

[Laughter]

The thing is, it's just mental arithmetic. Thank heavens for the iPhone calculator is all I can say! Is there anything basic you never quite got the hang of? Humour me here!!

xoxo

3 comments:

Apryl said...

I think there are alot of things that they teach you in school that you will never need in the real world and that the often forget to stress the importance of things like simple maths or the fact that you wasted all that time learning cursive and proper penmanship and then you will never need that skill again because everyone wants things typed these days. there should be mroe classes about fixing things when they are broken. Cooking things other than cakes, so when you are living on your own you can cook more than ramen noodles or pasta with ready made sauce. Basic life skills instead of algebra and all the other math that I cant recall anymore.


also if you add in gifts made using your nifty machine you will be sorted in no time at all. justify it!

Littleclouds said...

muhahha funny!

Knit and Destroy said...

Get yer abacus out! £50 for a bookbinding machine....bargain! x