Big Calculators Make Big Calculations

This is kind of a throw-away post.  I just think it’s important that you know about the big calculations going on here in Azerbaijan.  It’s not that people are necessarily dealing with big numbers; in fact, usually they’re just calculating my 3-4 Manat charge at the local convenience store.  Not big at all.  But the important thing is that they have the big calculator.  Pictured over there on the left, this is the type of calculator that is absolutely necessary for you to be taken seriously at all as someone involved in any sort of business.  And as you use your big calculator, you must hit the keys with a gusto that says, “This is my big calculator, and my big gestures with my big calculator suggest a mastery of both the instrument and the process.”

Talking with Sharif, a volunteer in Ismayıllı, he informed me that there is actually a store in Ismayıllı that has a true-to-life, electronic cash register.  This is a mark of development, right?  But instead of using the cash register effectively, the store owner breaks out the big calculator, tallies your bill, then hits the one button on the register that pops the cash drawer.  This is an incredibly minimalistic approach to the use of the cash register.  I’m hoping Sharif may be able to drop in sometime and show him how to use it.  That, my friends, would be development.

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