The anecdote I heard was a grade-school teacher admitting they had never used the Pythagorean formula IRL.
Well, no fucking shit, Sherlock! You aren't the sort of person to turn to math to solve problems. You're the sort of homesy chuckle-cluck who puts up inspirational posters on your bedroom wall.
OTOH, I've been on my back in an attic with a house builder, and calculated the 3-dimensional length of the bizarre edges of a skylight (where the ceiling opening was completely skew to the roof opening). We absolutely used math to solve the problem.
That grade school teacher? They wouldn't have been asked to check the calculations. The carpenter? Used math IRL.
Well, no fucking shit, Sherlock! You aren't the sort of person to turn to math to solve problems. You're the sort of homesy chuckle-cluck who puts up inspirational posters on your bedroom wall.
OTOH, I've been on my back in an attic with a house builder, and calculated the 3-dimensional length of the bizarre edges of a skylight (where the ceiling opening was completely skew to the roof opening). We absolutely used math to solve the problem.
That grade school teacher? They wouldn't have been asked to check the calculations. The carpenter? Used math IRL.