# Reaching a Gray area in my career .. some guidance may help



## SpreedsheetCrusader (Oct 12, 2015)

Long wall of text sorry but I appreciate reading and giving some feedback 

background: Engineering graduate has a PMI certification, worked primarily as a project coordinator in various projects related to business processes improvement in several companies for 5 years.

my situation in the past 2 years:

I was moved into a role that is not defined inside a big corp, it revolve around assisting the senior executive team in visualization and presentation slides creation (slides design and slide deck narrative and structure construction) , I use Excel mainly for producing my custom charts and basic info-graphics in addition to using the ole PowerPoint.

I was moved to this role after working on a mega project that was shut down inside the same corp. management decided to move me from the PMO to the VP office to do the role I have described above

my situation is that I feel my role have turned me into a craftsman without an actual craft ! ; people no longer consult me in various subjects (when i used to be working as a project coordinator i used to be engaged into different fields of knowledge but did not specialize in any of them), i noticed my work associates only approach me now for Spreadsheets and presentation related work and consultation.

For the past two year I started to feel uncomfortable and insecure, I do not know where I am heading. My compass is going haywire

*inquiries*

·         I am not sure whether the transition I made was healthy or not, when I used to work on project management, relevancy to my engineering background was sort of high. Now I feel I am doing work similar to some extent to journalist working on visualizing cases and data, telling stories in articles and presentation cards (Washington post, fivethirtyeight etc.)

·         Can I bank on Excel for a career? If so How can I evolve my proficiency levels in this particular tool? I have bought lots of technical books for Excel read them and used some of their concepts in work cases " Advanced Excel essentials for Jordan Goldmeier" " Excel power programming with VBA for Mr.Spreadsheets" “Excel charts from Mr.Excel” in addition I constantly visit web references, sites and forums and try to participate & learn.

·         When it comes to VBA I feel I am swimming in an ocean and I cant specialize into something, VBA could be used for many things, I cannot master every application but I am doing well in manipulating and produce custom charts and dashboards utilizing VBA, because that is relevant to my current work assignments. I feel I can sustain what I have learned only when it is relevant to my day to day work engagement. That is a problem I am facing I guess.

·         Will VBA have a future anyways? I have read in many forums and articles that it is not something to bank on for the future. Should I focus on learning HTML and mastering several JavaScript libraries instead? the lateral didn’t kick off well with me tried to start learning and churning through it last year but lack of actual application and relevancy to current assignments did not help in sustaining the knowledge I have learned.


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## mole999 (Oct 12, 2015)

If you can find another job that you can travel to, to re utilise the skills then change jobs, you're obviously not happy where you are now. 

Get yourself a cheap hosted website and play on there with fictitious info to test and hone what you learn, keep it irrelevant, then when applying you will have a demonstrable asset


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## SpreedsheetCrusader (Oct 12, 2015)

> If you can find another job that you can travel to, to re utilize the skills then change jobs, you're obviously not happy where you are now.



kinda of agree on that, i dunno i feel diminished and confined inside the Excel/Powerpoint realm, and I cant tell if that is a positive emotion (i.e. i Should change career since i feel bad) or a negative emotion masking a true potential that i may screw up by not capitalizing on and delving into. (i.e. my feeling of frustration could be wrong and I should stay at what i am doing and further evolve it).

Thanks Mole999, i see your signature; it says 





> excel is not my chosen career, its a means to an ends


 have you been into a similar experience in your career?


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## Smitty (Oct 13, 2015)

Have you talked to your boss?


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## SpreedsheetCrusader (Oct 13, 2015)

My boss is happy that I am a charts and graphs creating machine. Honestly he begged me before not to leave lol.
I do not know what I feel is that they tapped into a resource (me) that they cannot risk leaving, chart design and presentation creation skills at the upper echelon  of my Corp.  Is weak and so far they tried hiring several guys for a similar role but they lacked the artistic sense needed to create meaningful sharp signal displaying graphs, visualizations  and slidea based on the business cases and data we deal with.

At the part of the world I work at, there is a lack of professional or mature resources that have a grasp on excel and VBA for Excel. When it comes to tech, the emphasis their on Web and database and BO system developers and engineers

But I don't see employers valuing that skill that much in the current region I am at. When ever an employer advertise an opening that require proffecincy in excel and VBA, they ask for other skills in parrelel like SQL, ACCESS and several programing languages proffecincy, and that I don't have and the spirit of the programmer geek is just not inside me, I can't find it.

I tried asking for a rise and emphasized the unique role am doing... got 700$ incearse on my 2500$ wage, which sounds mean and not worthy  .

I wish if some of the gurus here can vow their opinion on the matter and the future of VBA and spreadsheet work for job vacancies. Does it have a future?


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## Smitty (Oct 14, 2015)

It's great that your boss values your abilities, but you might want to talk to him about career pathing, and that you're worried about being pigeon holed.

As for VBA, it's not going away anytime soon, and there will always be a need for spreadsheet analysis in business.


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## RoryA (Oct 14, 2015)

SpreedsheetCrusader said:


> When ever an employer advertise an opening that require proffecincy in excel and VBA, they ask for other skills in parrelel like SQL, ACCESS and several programing languages proffecincy



That's pretty much the same in London, FWIW. There are few jobs that are pure VBA development, but a lot of jobs where being able to do that will make your life infinitely easier!



> I tried asking for a rise and emphasized the unique role am doing... got 700$ incearse on my 2500$ wage, which sounds mean and not worthy



I guess that depends how you look at it. I can't recall the last time I got a 28% pay rise!


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## mole999 (Oct 14, 2015)

RoryA said:


> I guess that depends how you look at it. I can't recall the last time I got a 28% pay rise!


whats a pay rise (oh yea, its that 1% government thingy)


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## SpreedsheetCrusader (Oct 14, 2015)

Dunno, I feel that working for 13 hrs a day 6 days a week on a small screen and spreassheets for just a 3k $ monthly wage is not fair  . Dunno just a feeling, it barely last with the living expenses where I live.

I just watched the modeloff championship contests it was encouraging, noticed that most of the participants coming form a consultancy background and specializing in financial modeling.

Maybe if I tried to change my compass direction from using excel for graphic design, dashboarding and visualization toward financial modeling and feasibly studies and the like, I would feel comfortable. After all with my excel knowledge only, I can't compete with coders and their arsenal of Javascript libraries such as D3, highchairs etc.. ( although I can produce lots of complex none traditional charts in excel) I don't think employers value spreadsheets produced visualizations as Web based developed one for instance)


Maybe it is time to apply for a consulting Firm and learn some of that financial wizardry 


Thanks for the reply guys.


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## Smitty (Oct 14, 2015)

> There are few jobs that are pure VBA development, but a lot of jobs where being able to do that will make your life infinitely easier!



A lot of organizations don't even know that VBA exists, so you can really wow them if you do and all of a sudden you're automating things left and right.


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