Venting!

[diddi]

the mechanations of an organisation can be fascinating...

recently at one place i have built some software, one staff member was telling me she had just found out that another (recently employed 'mover and shaker' ) staff member had gained a lot of weekend overtime retyping data out of the software i built onto a flat excel sheet for some odd request from those who know best.

then she asked "cant you just use the <export data> button?" to which i happily relied "thats what is there for!" and we both had a little chortle (at the boss's expense).

to my knowledge the data hasnt been used LOL

 

[MARK858]

I have a couple of bits to add from my experiences...

1) At work my IT department now don't bother putting Access on any PC they upgrade unless someone requests it because they know that there are so few people who will use it.

2) About 4 months ago a more senior manager asked me to write a macro for a sheet that about 10 people were to use. I told him that bar the text file import it could all be done with formulas and got a "No,No I want a macro".

So now they have a macro that imports the text file and then fills 5 columns down approx 22,000 rows with formula (3 of the columns are just various forms of lookups and the the others a sum and a datediff formula). I also by accident left the screenupdating on (I think actually they are fascinated watching the flicker).

I had a mate of mine down from our IT dept. who saw someone using it and asked me "Don't tell me you wrote that?" and I replied "He asked for a macro so I gave him one". He thinks I'm nasty.
But they are still happily using it now....

 

[Michael M]

FWIW
Senior member of staff brings me a worksheet with 2500 lines of data 22 columns...demands that I fix it, as the results are wrong !!

On looking at the bottom of each column, I see a number....no formula, no code, just a number....
I ask, "How did you get this result ?".....dumb look....."Duh !!....I added them up"

Almost ALL columns required a very simple SUMIF function...function written, copied across, job done...correct answers........"Wow, how did you do that !!"

Can you imagine the look, when I whipped up a Pivot table for him with all the data ready to go !!


Yep..."I added them up"....on the calculator !!
Find the data, scroll across, add the number, back to data, find,scroll, add..........

 

[MARK858]

We have a guy in one of our branches who still hand draws basic line graphs... he says its quicker (having said that I have seen him using his PC and he is probably right...bless him).
Nice man though.

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

I worked with a guy about thirteen years ago that thought the mouse was called a 'moose'. That's because his son gave him a crash-course in computers when the firm he was working for finally gave up paper ledgers and thought it would be fun to mess with the jargon.

I thought it was so hilarious that I cut out antlers from some brown cardboard and stuck it to his 'moose'!

 

[PaddyD]

"He asked for a macro so I gave him one".

That could be interpreted in a number of ways.

 

[MARK858]

So it can. At least it was interpreted right at the time.

 

[diddi]

I thought it was so hilarious that I cut out antlers from some brown cardboard and stuck it to his 'moose'!

i think i want to make some antlers right now

 

[Brian from Maui]

One of my more disappointing momnets were with my former airline company. I have devised a backup weight and balance system in Excel to mimic a mainframe. This system calculated the center of gravity of an aircraft among other things. Without those calculations the plane doesn't fly.

BTW, my system was approved by the FAA as a back up system in case the main frame went down, which it did on a dialy basis.

It was deemd by the higher ups that doing this with paper and pencil, plotting graphs and rules were safer for the traveling public. The error of margin for this process was 20%, versus the Excel version of Zero.

BTW, the aircraft were widebody ones like the 767's Airbus DC-10 and smaller 717's.

Go figure.

 

[T. Valko]

Back in the mid/late 80's I was working in a chemistry lab where we were just starting to use Excel extensively (thanks to me for getting the ball rolling!).

I got promoted to a supervisory position in the process department where they had no idea what a spreadsheet was or how it could be used.

The very first thing I did was redesign all of our reporting forms. And I used Excel!!! We even had form making software.