A Job Without Math

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How about a monkey? Unless they have to count the dung that they throw

 

@reepnorp, your teacher is an idiot. I feel sorry for you. He sounds like a latin teacher I had. A real sadistic SOB. By the way what mathematics course does he pretend to teach? Teachers such as he make me very angry.

 

What a shmuck. That's an irritating of way of proving "oh, I guess you DO need math for EVERY job after all!"

Although I disagree that all the maths should be taught to people that aren't in specialized courses that require them (economics, engineering, etc.).

Algebra would be fine for everybody. Just the "pluses", "minuses" and... err, "multiplicases" and "divises"

 

reepnorp -- tell your teacher he's an idiot. Not necessarily for proving himself wrong (although that is worthy of at least some disdain), but because of a) saying something correct, b) which was in his favour, c) then for proving himself wrong, d) even though he wasn't.

A free-verse poet doesn't require maths. If he was aiming to avoid writing sonnets, or any other particular literary genre, he would fall into mannerism of sorts, which would be another kind of genre-ing his works -- the rules in this case would be to go against rules set for other genres.

In other words -- the guy is a poor Maths teacher. I wouldn't be surprised if you had any story of these on him:
1. He gave you an exercise to do, which some of you did, but the guy wasn't able to say whether you were right or wrong because he:
a) forgot to;
b) wasn't able to;
c) didn't think you would be able to do the exercise.
2. He gave you an exercise to which none of you were able to do, but he:
a) has done it on the blackboard correctly, but then erased it because he thought he was wrong;
b) has not done it on the blackboard correctly:
-- and has wiped it, abandoned, and went on to something else;
-- but has said that it is done the way it should be, that he was correct, and that you are to copy it...

Cheers!

 

I'm actually not sure what he was trying to prove. If he wanted to show that you could describe some part of every job in mathematical terms - well, OK, mission accomplished. Big whoop. But you could do the same for, say, physics. Or chemistry. Or biolology. Or language arts. Or pretty much anything else.

If, on the other hand, he wanted to show that you actually needed to apply mathematics in order to do any job, he failed miserably.

But take my advice - don't call him an idiot; he probably wouldn't appreciate the truth

 

What maths does he teach? I seriously doubt any of the above mentioned carrers would involve anything past year 1 maths- therfore nullifying the argument - you may need maths, just not the maths he is teaching.
My answer would have been some type of a busker or a prostitute. Or maybe someone in a sweatshop as there is no way to contest your pay even if you can do the maths to prove it was wrong (they are also prolific - although not in Australia and do get some pay) I suppose this pretty much comes under slave however.

 

Ask him if he knows of any job that doesn't require economics, or how about asking him of any household chore that doesn't involve home economics... the guy might as well have told you to breathe but without filling your lungs.

 

If getting paid for the job, and doing anything that requires thinking equals needing maths, then the choices are rather limited.

I would say the baby idea was closest to the right choice. Basically all "jobs" require some form of thinking and doing. Even if you're just a hand model or something, you still get paid. And a corpse while can be used for scientifical studies etc, isn't exactly "working" for anyone. This almost sounds like it'd go to the legal side of things.

What I mean is that the person who does the "job", isn't the person who gets the wage for it. And at the same time, the job would have to be something that does not require thinking. That is, the person can be able to think and do maths if he wants to, but the job doesn't require it.

So let's assume we have a retarded guy who looks real good and poses as a model. Basically, it's his job to pose as a model, but since he's retarded he isn't considered to be able to carry the responsibilities of an adult. As such, both of the two conditions hold: All he is required to do is to exist. Other people will put the clothes on him, make him ready, position him the way they want etc (if standing is considered maths then just take the hand-model example used before, holding that hand still requires nothing save restraint and even a corpse has the restraint to hold still). And at the same time his salary doesn't even go to him but his parents.

Now I'm not saying "a retarded hand-model" is the answer, but basically any job that fulfills those two should be a good one. Then there's just one thing left: To find a job that works like that and doesn't depend on the person doing the job.

I believe the diaper model is the best answer here. A baby is no different from a retarded adult in that legally they're both considered unable to take responsibility for their own lives and as such their parents / foster parents / whatever will earn the money for them. But all the same, you can't say it's their parents' job. Or that in fact no-one is doing the job at all.

Sorry for the jabbering again. I'm so tired I can hardly make out the text I'm typing, heh. All a stream of consciousness again as usual.

That said, if any subconscious act even is considered as requiring maths, then only a corpse qualifies. For even babies wouldn't do since their joggling, breathing and moving all require "maths" if that was the case. And in that case the teacher really is lame, even if funny.

 

pro athlete maybe? i know...they get a paycheck but...90% of the time their attorneys deal with the money and not them.

 

Pro athlete? Let me see, winning times, PB's, count of strides on a field event, length on a track before they break for the finish, I think any sport would envolve math...

 

President of the USA?

 

Hello? Physical labor! My boss yelled at one of my co-workers that he pays him to "DO" not to "THINK"! Today we were moving a bunch of heavy steel racks from the shipping dock to the upper level. There wasn't any counting. We simply moved all the racks off the truck and on to the upper level.

Others just stand on the production/shipping line and put a single piece of paper in any box that comes rolling down the line. There's no counting involved. They have a huge stack of paper behind them that they take from when they run out. It's as simple as putting a single piece of paper in any box that rolls by in front of them. And they don't even need to worry about the level of the stack behind them because the forklift operators replace it for them when it gets low.

Also, there is a guy at my work that operates the mixing system. To turn it on, you push a green button...and to turn it off, you push a big red button. Those two buttons turn on every mixer connected to the driveshaft, which is connected to the motor that he controls. The workers below him tell him exactly when they are ready for the mixers to be turned on, and when to turn them off. And he gets paid $10 an hour to push two buttons and sit on his butt all day. So tell your math teacher that, and if he tries to make something up, I'll bring him to my work and show him what some of the people I work with do all day.

So there are 3 examples. I could probably think of more, but I'm to lazy right now.


Also, if you don't consider counting a form of math as compared to addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, then you don't need more than a 1st grade math level! There are hundreds of jobs that will never require multiplication or division; so most people can get by with minimal math skills. There are actually very few jobs that would require complex and difficult math formulas...like E=Mc2.

Tell your teacher to get off your back.

[ February 15, 2005, 03:21: Message edited by: Kitrax ]

 

Did anyone say "Maths teacher. All you have to do is look at the answer keys"?

 

janitors maybe? our janitor cant even do 14+16 in his head...still does fine

 

Does logic fall under maths?

If so:

Code:

If rack on truck
    move rack to upper level
else
finished

Sounds like maths to me

 

What maths does he teach? I seriously doubt any of the above mentioned carrers would involve anything past year 1 maths- therfore nullifying the argument - you may need maths, just not the maths he is teaching.
My answer would have been some type of a busker. Or maybe someone in a sweatshop as there is no way to contest your pay even if you can do the maths to prove it was wrong (they are also prolific - although not in Australia and do get some pay) I suppose this pretty much comes under slave however.

 

Tell that math teacher to "go outside and play hide and go **** yourself!"

 

Actually, that sounds like programming to me.

 

Programming is in essence mathematics

 

Heir/ess.