"Double It And Add 30."

I am still Americanized. And I probably will be till the day I die. I still use the following American units of measurement:

• Pounds
• Inches
• Feet
• Miles
• Fahrenheit
• Gallons

And I don't plan on changing things. But every time someone quotes a metric measurement to me, I look at them with confusion and say, "I have no idea what that is. Can you speak it in American?"

My boss, El Jefe, finally got tired of me referring to the temperature in Fahrenheit that he taught me how to easily to the calculation to Celsius.

"Double it and add 30," he explained. "And if you want to change it from Fahrenheit to Celsius, you subtract 30 and divide by 2."

So, for example, if I say, "It's 70 degrees out!"... What I mean in Celsius is, "It's 20 degrees out!"

And, if I read online that it is, "Ten degrees Celsius"... What that means, "It is 50 degrees Fahrenheit."

Now though, whenever El Jefe says a measurement to me in "Canadian," other than temperatures, I still ask him what it means in "American." He now just quotes...

"Double it and add 30."

So...

Me: "El Jefe, I don't know what it is in kilometres. I need it in miles."

The Chief: "Double it and add 30."

Me: "What does 480 centimeters look like inches?"

The Chief: "Double it and add 30."

Even though that certainly is not the formula for converting everything, it has become his standard answer when dealing with my American questions. So today, when I asked him about a measurement and he responded with, "Double it and add 30"... I shot back an inquiry of:

"Is that how you're going to calculate the big raise you're going to give me?"

He didn't answer me. At all.

But I can assume that is how he will do it. Even though I just started at this job and don't really qualify for a raise.