Odds or Evens
The City of Albany started a snow emergency at 8pm on Sunday. During snow emergencies, residents must park on the even side of the street during the first 24 hours, and the odd side of the street during the second 24 hours.
An article from local NBC affiliate WNYT enumerates some of the problems Albanians have had in comprehending this complex system of “odd” and “even”. In particular:
Ashley Laleker moved to Albany from Balitmore [sic] three months ago.
“I walked to where my car was. No car. So I had to walk to school,” she said Monday.
As a med student, Laleker knew she was in for some tough courses, but not a snow emergency.
“I kind of ignored it because I didn’t get it,” she said. “They said you have to park on either an even or an odd side of the street and that didn’t make sense to me so I ignored it and I got towed.”
What kind of criteria must med schools have nowadays that allows in students who get confused by the idea of “odd” and “even”?
Ashley, if you can divide a number by two on your school-approved calculator and you get a “.5″ on the far right side of the display, the number’s odd. If you don’t, it’s even. Just so you’re clear for next time.
To be fair to Ms. Laleker, she might have misunderstood the parking regulations, not the concept of odd and even. But still, shouldn’t a medical student be able to handle a concept that can be explained completely in 50 words or less? And failing that, you know, maybe ask someone rather than just ignore the problem?
Now, Ashley, please stay away from my internal organs. Kthxbai.
Tags: dumbpeople, emergency, even, medical, odd, snow, student
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am
To be fair, I don’t think this is immediately obvious, and that’s not because I don’t understand the difference between odd and even. It’s because I am not familiar with the concept being applied to a street. I assume that it means “the odd-numbered side” and “the even-numbered side”, but in that case why didn’t they just say so rather than coining a somewhat unusual piece of syntax?
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 am
@miss_next: Hmm… good point. Though in the U.S. I suspect this turn-of-phrase might be somewhat more common than in the U.K.
Of course, the wording might just be obvious to those of us who live in New England, which is why a medical student from Baltimore might not immediately get it.
Do any other readers find this phrase confusing?
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:30 am
Even if the wording was confusing one might be so inclined to ask around rather than ignore the issue completely.
Considering the person in question “ignored it because I didn’t get it” let’s hope that’s not her policy when it comes to her education as well…
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
@MissCeeBee:
“I noticed some kind of growth on your pancreas, but I didn’t really understand why it would be there, so I ignored it…”
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Agreed. It’s not a very abstract concept, and 2 minutes of inquiry would have saved her a tow. This is really the kind of thing you would expect someone of that supposed intellect to be able to figure out. It kind of reminds me of an article I read, talking about how orgo chem was part of the premed curriculum not so much because it was needed, but to weed out the less intellectually gifted.
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:32 pm
@Aaron:
That’s right about the o-chem thing. Some genius must have brought that up. :-)
December 24th, 2008 at 12:16 am
I’ll be honest. I didn’t realize the addresses buildings on one side of the street are odd while those on the other side are even, so this perplexed me for a second. Then I thought about my own neighborhood, where it goes, 840, 842, 848 (actually, that confuses me too. Where are those other two houses??). But now I get it. Although does this apply to all streets? Like, say I want a delicious toasty sub at the Quizno’s on Erie Blvd where it merges with I-890. Would I have to park on the other side of the street and walk across four lanes of traffic that are either coming from or headed for the interstate?
December 24th, 2008 at 8:33 am
@Pat R.:
Are there vacant lots between 842 and 848 (or at least, more space than between 840 and 842)? Most cities allot numbers based on a standard lot size, so it’s possible that number 842 or 848 have double or triple lots.
Occasionally some enterprising homeowner will build another (tiny) house in between, say, 840 and 842. The new house would get number 840½ in order to maintain the odd-even system. These “half” numbers are rare, but you can find a couple of them in Albany.
Maybe Ashley’s address had a “½” in it and that confused her?
(Doubt it.)
December 24th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
There’s not a whole lot of space, at least not two houses worth, but there’s def more than is between 840 and 842. It’s probably that they both own double lots, because they have pretty big houses.
April 26th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
In her defense, medical students are often times solely devoted to their studies. They can lose touch a bit, especially in the first two years, with their immediate environment and society. There are many examples of people getting their cars towed, parking tickets, etc or not doing some basic chores that are ignored as a medical student because of the intense immersion into their studies.
As for the “skimming over the mass on the pancreas.” Would you rather have a doctor that payed attention to where they parked, or a doctor that payed their sole attention to your medical care? Again, this is often times the mindset of medical students/doctors, to not deal with mundane issues and be completely invested in their patients. This could have been an example of that.
April 27th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
@anonymous:
Thanks for the viewpoint. I’ve never been a medical student, so I can’t say for certainty what was going through her mind.