[USMA:36688] Metric problem and solution at work

[Mike Millet]

Today while at work I had a couple of interesting experiences that I thought I'd pass on. The first was a woman who came in looking for an adapter to fit a standard 2.5mm headphone jack into the larger 3.5mm jacks on a TV. I handed her the package which was labeled " 2.5mm to 3.5mm conversion cable", and she promptly asked me why it wasn't labelled in inches. I responded that I had never seen those jacks referred to in anything but millimeters and she responded with "Well I'm American so I shouldn't have to deal with metric displayed on the things that I buy. We use inches and feet here"

Following this experience I sold a network card to a lady who taught grade four in school and she mentioned that not only do her students learn metric before customary US units but they learn US units in terms of metric, i.e. a cup is equal to 240mL and a mile is equal to 1.6km, as well as a meter being the height of a door knob and temperature in Celsius. Every day when they start classes they review the current temperature in Celsius first then Farenheit and proceed to review the basic SI units by her holding up examples (a paper clip, a nickel, a one liter bottle and so forth) and asking the students to identify them.

So in one day I've seen both the problem facing metrication and the solution :). All in all not a bad day

Mike

--
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it why can't you?"