Today I was coached - patiently and with the best of intentions –by a senior colleague on the intricacies and inherent complexities of proper data entry in MS Excel. While I valiantly attempted to restrain my laughter, this fine gentleman explained in all earnestness how I was to procure a simple daily count, then sum to a weekly count, then sum to a monthly total. “Now just a minute!” you say, “did you not recently receive an honours degree in Commerce/Finance with an A average?”
Bah, what’s a piece of paper anyways? Never mind that: when this senior colleague was in school, the personal computer did not even exist. In fact, the sheer power of the Excel program is basically lost to him; the entire realm of matrices and calculations and charts and conditions floats on the horizon of his understanding. Once in awhile he will venture to change the font size or the cell shading, but beyond that all bets are off. It is not that he isn’t smart enough to learn; it’s more like he’s standing at the edge of a lake, not quite ready to take the plunge into cold and mysterious waters, unsure of his ability to swim.
As for stumping my superiors at least once per week, I filled my quota beautifully during this same meeting… with only this simple logic:
Beginning Inventory + In – Out = Ending Inventory
Another day, another dollar.
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