# What exactly is a manager?



## Felix Atagong (Jan 5, 2005)

Just 5 minutes ago a senior sales manager (who is supposed to send tariffs to clients) asked me:

How do I open Excel?

So I put my greasy finger on his monitor to show him the little icon with a big X.


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## yee388 (Jan 5, 2005)

My question is, if he didn't know how to open it, how did he plan on doing anything in it? Surely being able to open the program is more basic knowledge than writing a formula...


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## Todd Bardoni (Jan 5, 2005)

Felix Atagong said:
			
		

> So I put my greasy finger on his monitor...



I love it!  I hate when people do that to me and now I know its a little piece of revenge.


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## Legacy 12630 (Jan 5, 2005)

yee388 said:
			
		

> My question is, if he didn't know how to open it, how did he plan on doing anything in it?



The best first step if planning to do something in Excel is probably to find out how to open it.


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## steve case (Jan 5, 2005)

Not an Excel story, but a true one:  

A manager I know printed out  a series of simple line drawings and proceeded to color code various sections of them with crayons and asked the minions to scan them back in.  The suggestion that the "Paint" program we all get with Microsoft Office would do the job with one mouse click was met with contempt and stubbornness.  These embarrassing coloring book renditions are still part of the company’s working documents.


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## Smitty (Jan 5, 2005)

> These embarrassing coloring book renditions are still part of the company’s working documents.


I could see the validity to that if you worked for Toys 'R Us or LegoLand...  

Our HR Department recently issued a decree from Corporate that all employes must wear ID Badges, so they hauled out the 1970's Polaroid ID makr that was stashed in storage and away they went.  (I made better fake ID's in High School    ).  Aparrently no one is to be admitted into the building without one or signing in and receiving a "Visitors" tag (someone's business card with the name whited out and "Visitor" marked over it, then laminated).  Hmmm...Maybe the HR Manager should check into locking all of our Receiving and PressRoom bay doors that anyone can walk through first.  Now there's a sign: "Entry doors will be locked promptly at 5:45 P.M, after that you will need a key to enter".  (Right next to 17 open bay doors).

Dilbert fer sure...

Smitty


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## Felix Atagong (Jan 6, 2005)

yee388 said:
			
		

> My question is, if he didn't know how to open it, how did he plan on doing anything in it? Surely being able to open the program is more basic knowledge than writing a formula...



Quite right, I suppose he always opened an Excel file directly by going to the 'My Documents' folder and double-clicking on the file (and then mailing it without changing anything). I've got two more stories on the same person, here I go:

1. One day a 'big' managing director from abroad visited our offices in Brussels. The manager complained about the computer software because everytime he had to send a mail he had to change the word FAX into MAIL. The explanation is simple: before the mailing days every manager had a Word template to send faxes to a client. On this template was written (in big): FAX. We still use the same template today (even I do), but apparently this person had never thought of opening his personal template, changing the word FAX into MAIL and saving the template again. 

2. I came back from a 3 weeks holiday and had to listen to the same man complaining that his printer was already broken for 2 weeks. Of course he had never thought of phoning the maintenance company. Well in fact that was a good thing, because I had a look at the back of the printer and put back the electricity cable in it.

Make a movie out of this and nobody believes it!


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## Felix Atagong (Jan 7, 2005)

Sorry because you will all think I make this up.   
This morning, about 45 minutes ago, I had to 'fix' a broken computer because the cleaning lady had taken out the plug yesterday to put her hoover in...


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## yee388 (Jan 7, 2005)

Imagine, electronic devices requiring electricity! What will they think of next??

The good part is that it doesn't seem like it's too difficult to come out looking like a genius in your office!


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## Zack Barresse (Jan 7, 2005)

Felix Atagong said:
			
		

> Sorry because you will all think I make this up.
> This morning, about 45 minutes ago, I had to 'fix' a broken computer because the cleaning lady had taken out the plug yesterday to put her hoover in...



I had the same problem, only it was with a co-workers speakers.  She said her speakers were broken, so I go through her driver's, the software and yes, even the cables for it.  The last thing I checked - the volume.


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## Smitty (Jan 7, 2005)

http://www.computerworld.com/topics/search/results?qp=&qt=shark+tank

Too many to laugh at/with...

Smitty


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## elgringo56 (Jan 7, 2005)

firefytr said:
			
		

> Felix Atagong said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I repair and build custom computers for a living.  The one I love the most is when a customer calls and tells me he has no sounds, and yes the speakers are pluged in to the jack marked as speaker.  My next question is " is that jack next to a phone jack"  The answer is usually yes, they have the speakers pluged into the modem card.  I have a million stories like that, but that is my favorite one.


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## Brian from Maui (Jan 8, 2005)

elgringo56 said:
			
		

> I repair and build custom computers for a living.  The one I love the most is when a customer calls and tells me he has no sounds, and yes the speakers are pluged in to the jack marked as speaker.  My next question is " is that jack next to a phone jack"  The answer is usually yes, they have the speakers pluged into the modem card.  I have a million stories like that, but that is my favorite one.



Sadly, I'm guilty of this very same thing when I first got my computer 10 years ago.  I called tech support for Gateway.....    You didn't work for Gateway back then did you?  It was a 120mz Pentium with a 2 gig hard drive.  I'm not so sure if I progressed any further.


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## elgringo56 (Jan 8, 2005)

No, have worked for myself for the last 11 years.  One thing that has always amazed me is that I will have a client that has more money than god come in and say he wants the biggest, best and fastest he can have, then after I put it together and he has baught it and taken it home, he will call and ask how to hook it up or turn it on.  That is not really that uncommon, seems to be a keep up with the Jones sort of thing to have one.  Good for my business, though.  LOL


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## steve case (Jan 8, 2005)

Some time ago I made an Excel program for a lady at work, It helped her out with a daily cut and paste chore, and really made her life easier. All she has to do is click a button and it runs,  well anyway, she had trouble with it earlier this week and I stopped by her desk at about 7:30 yesterday morning to ask if it was running OK now.  

You know what she told me?  "I don't start until 7:45"  

The woman is nearly illiterate when it comes to computers, and she depands on me to help her with Excel.  I'm not MIS support and helping her is not part of my job.  I do it because I like to help people, and I love making things work in Excel. I haven't decided what I'm going to tell her the next time she pages me for help.


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## Smitty (Jan 8, 2005)

> I'm not MIS support and helping her is not part of my job. I do it because I like to help people, and I love making things work in Excel. I haven't decided what I'm going to tell her the next time she pages me for help.


Aren't most of us in the same position...It's a love/hate kinda' thing... :wink: 

And managers are far worse than "regular" users.

Yesterday, for the hundreth time, I had to show my boss how to attach photos in a Lotus Not(s) e-mail.  "Why is this so $#%*ing difficult?" he asked.  "It's not, you are", was my reply; to which I, of course, got the finger.  Then, for more than the hundreth time, he said "someday you're going to have to teach me how to do this..."  You'd think that after 7+ years, he would have learned...  

Smitty


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## Felix Atagong (Jan 10, 2005)

> Yesterday, for the hundreth time, I had to show my boss how to attach photos in a Lotus Not(s) e-mail. #snip# Then, for more than the hundreth time, he said "someday you're going to have to teach me how to do this..."  You'd think that after 7+ years, he would have learned...



We must work for the same boss, mine has the same problem with Outlook Express. Once I had to come to the rescue because he had opened an attachment by double clicking on a mail from the inbox, tried to e-mail the open file to someone else but wanted to be sure it was the right file so he had clicked it once again to check. He couldn't find his mail message again (it was hidden 'behind' the open Excel window), so he tried to attach the open Excel file to a new mail... and so on... and so on... After a while Windows collapsed...  

Luckily he pays me a pizza from time to time when I come to the rescue... Is it a bird, a plane? No, it is SUPER FELIX!


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## Bruno_x (Jan 10, 2005)

Felix Atagong said:
			
		

> > Luckily he pays me a pizza from time to time when I come to the rescue... Is it a bird, a plane? No, it is SUPER FELIX!
> 
> 
> Hi Felix, the IT-muscles from Brussels  :wink:
> ...


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## steve case (Jan 12, 2005)

By the way, managers are not the only ones that deserve ridicule.  Here's another true story:

Quite a few years ago I asked the IT guy to help me get the system to print a report.  I had done it before, but I had forgotten some steps and needed help.  So he came in did some things and turned over the terminal to me and said,  "It's menu option number 4 where it says, 'Print Report'."  

"Hmmm" I said, "That's great, but isn't there more to it?  I seem to remember having to type in 'P R I N T'  somewhere along the line."

"No! Read the screen!" he said, "Number 4 says 'Print Report' that's the one you want."

"Something's missing" I said, "Are you sure I don't have to type in P R I N ..."  

He cut me off and angrily told me again to read the screen, that number 4 said "Print Report."

Finally I said, "How do you get to this screen?"

"Oh" he said, "You type in P R I N T"


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## steve case (Jan 21, 2005)

I hope someone is able to provide some help:

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=126422


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## Zack Barresse (Jan 21, 2005)

StACase said:
			
		

> I hope someone is able to provide some help:
> 
> http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=126422


Are CBrine/JWas solution(s) not enough?


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## Cbrine (Jan 21, 2005)

Hey Zack,
  I think he was just pointing out that the post begin's with.  My boss want's this, even if you, as my employee, have no idea how to do it.  And me as the boss doesn't have the time to show you the employee, even though I know more about it then you do.


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## steve case (Jan 21, 2005)

Cbrine pretty well nailed it.  I saw that post and thought of this thread.  What's amazing and GREAT about this place is someone provided answers while I was clicking and pointing to find this thread.  (-:
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