# Stupid Questions



## MarkAndrews (May 23, 2006)

What was the last stupid excel based question you were asked by someone in your office?

Mine – “What does =sum do?”


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## Oaktree (May 23, 2006)

My favorite was "what's the Excel function to calculate an average?"


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## lenze (May 23, 2006)

My favorite is not a dumb question, but dumb remarks by IT personnel. Examples

"You can't do that in Excel" ( I just did)
"You can't modify that workbook, it's password protected" (Not anymore)

lenze


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## Greg Truby (May 23, 2006)

The most recent one (I doubt it will be the last)...

"Why won't this let me save this file I opened out on the network drive?"
I walk over and glance down.
"You see up on the title bar, where it says '[Read-Only]' after the file name?"
"Yes."
"Means it's 'read only'.  No 'writie, writie'.  If you want to save any changes you must use a new file name."


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## Cbrine (May 23, 2006)

Asked by the Director of HR.

"How do you add two cells togetherin Excel?"

I thought some part of the education might include spreadsheets, guess I wrong.

Cal


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## Michael M (May 23, 2006)

Hi All

"Help !!!, my monitor is faulty, it keeps blacking out every few minutes."

Try setting the screen saver to something other than none and change the time to something more useful, like 10 minutes or more.


" Wow, I didn't know I could do that"

Michael M


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## Joe4 (May 24, 2006)

This is not so much a stupid question as a stupid thing to do:

A while back, someone told me that they received a file from a client, and they needed to make many changes to it.  Somehow, multiple versions of the file got saved, but the updates were scattered among many files.  They needed to get all of the changes together in one file.  So I looked at it, and I saw these file names like:

*File
CopyofFile
CopyofCopyofFile
CopyofCopyofCopyofFile*

They swore that they did not change the names of any of the files.

So I researched the original file the client sent us and discovered that the file was marked Read-Only, but also had the AutoSave feature turned on (every ten minutes).  So if you had it open for more than ten minutes, it would resave it, but under a different name because of the Read-Only setting!

I explained to them that you probably never want to use both Read-Only and AutoSave on the same file, as they contradict what the other one is trying to accomplish!


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## Greg Truby (May 24, 2006)

Joe -- that reminds me of an interesting thing that happened a few weeks ago...

Doing the shared workbook thing on a network drive (same group of folks involved in my post above).  The workbook contains macros (written by yours truly) and consequently my digital signature.  For some reason if a user opened the workbook and had autosave turned on, it would void out my digital signature when doing the autosave.  That one took me a while to figure out.  So now the WB's _Open() contains Me.EnableAutoRecover = False


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## onlyadrafter (May 26, 2006)

Sorry to pick on you, but....

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=213397


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## macleanb (May 26, 2006)

Working for a large corporate, all faults go to a help line.  One day my monitor decides it doesnt want to work, no light or sign of power at all.  SO I phone up the help desk.  I describe the problem.  The first thing they ask is "what's your IP address, I'd like to remote log onto your PC".  

Now I dont know my IP off by heart as they are quite regularly reassigned, I cant see my PC to get the current IP, and I am a really little unsure how you diagnose a dead monitor by remote acess......


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## Smitty (May 26, 2006)

From an e-mail this morning:

"Smitty!  Your file is broken!  I just opened it and this is what I got:

ÐÏ à¡± á                >   þÿ	      þÿÿÿ, ETC.

*EDITED to fix the text fubar extending the page*

Can you fix it?!  I need that information now!"

Wondering WTF?, I walk over to see...

"Open it in Excel, not WORD."

Or my Boss:

"Smitty, your file is all ****ED up!  What did you do wrong?! I can't do anything with it!"  (Not that I want him to do anything with, or more to the point do, anyway).

"Dude, you opened it with Lotus Not(s) _VIEW_.  Try _OPEN_..."

That happens daily...I am getting tired of him trying to open the CFO's Lotus 1-2-3 files through Not(s) though.  After several YEARS it's gotten a wee bit old: Save to Desktop-->Open with Excel...

Smitty

At least dealing with ID10T's, I have some modicum of job security... 

Have a great Memorial Day weekend y'all!

Smitty


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## doco (Jun 1, 2006)

I still see this occansionally: making calculations on a 10 key adding machine and putting the results in Excel.


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## erik.van.geit (Jun 1, 2006)

Smitty,

are you sure your boss isn't visiting this forum ?  
or is your avatar and nickname providing enough security ?


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## Smitty (Jun 1, 2006)

> Smitty,
> 
> are you sure your boss isn't visiting this forum ?
> or is your avatar and nickname providing enough security ?



Dude,

He couldn't figure out how to surf ****, let alone how to get here. 

Smitty


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## Greg Truby (Jun 1, 2006)

> > ...Dude,
> > He couldn't figure out how to surf ****...
> > -Smitty
> 
> ...


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## Joe4 (Jun 1, 2006)

Here is another good one I got.

Someone told me that they were having trouble converting a text file to Excel.  They said they are just getting gibberish.  I told them that opening a text file in Excel should invoke the Wizard, and just follow that to split your fields.  They said they weren't getting any Wizard.

Okay, now I began to get a little suspicous, so I am asked them to show me how they convert a file.  They went out to Windows Explorer, located their text file (foo.txt) and renamed it to foo.xls and then opened it.

If only it were that easy to convert files by simply changing their extensions!


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## doco (Jun 1, 2006)

Or maybe they should learn to read a hex-dump...


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## Clementine (Jun 1, 2006)

All this makes me wonder how much our IT folks laugh at idiots like me.


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## milesUK (Jun 2, 2006)

Not strictly on-topic but I took a call to look at one of 'my' sheets that "was not working"; no more info.

Made the 3 minute journey to requestors desk to find it wasn't one of mine at all! It even had the true authors name emblazoned across it who was sat a couple of desks away.

"Well, can't _you_ fix it"?

I calmly walked away.


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## doco (Jun 2, 2006)

Or you know you're an Excel junkie, when a co-worker asks you the same question for the umpteenth time (in a month) and you gladly go to their aid (well maybe not-so-gladly; but you go)


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## Duncan Butterworth (Jul 12, 2006)

My favourite is when someone says to me my tabs have disappeared from the bottom how do Ii change sheets. I calmly walk over and press the maximise button. this happens a lot, beleive me. I usually get a ooooooooooooh your good on excel or isnt it magic.

Duncan


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