81–90 of 435 posts
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This is my experience working in offices like law firms that are filled with people that have limited technical aptitude for using software. Showing any sort of competency is a recipe for increasing your workload with no conferred benefits.
That's fine, the problem is that you also get all the blame as well. Once you "fix" a computer, everything that will break will suddenly be your fault.
I do not understand the mindset of not wanting to help other people. Enabling people to learn more about the software they use every day is better for everyone involved. Yes, some problems are too complex to solve in a few minutes, but pointing someone in the right direction requires little to no effort. Excel lacks the community programmers have and also lacks the learning opportunities given by open-source software…
You, sir, have not been the victim of help vampires.
> A lot of people struggle to find answers specifically because of this lack of community around using Excel as a tool
I am unaware of this lack of information. Perhaps I am not doing the really, really, really exotic stuff but every question I have ever had on Excel has been answerable via Google.
I do not understand the mindset of not wanting to help other people. Enabling people to learn more about the software they use every day is better for everyone involved. Yes, some problems are too complex to solve in a few minutes, but pointing someone in the right direction requires little to no effort. Excel lacks the community programmers have and also lacks the learning opportunities given by open-source software…
It's less "not wanting to help people" and more "once people know you're 'the Excel person' they come to you for everything to do with Excel". It's very similar to being 'the computer person' in a family/group of friends and everyone coming to you with all their various tech support questions. At a certain point, it starts ruining your productivity since you get taken out of your regular job to do these one time help…
Shameless plug - we actually founded a service [1] that provides Excel experts on-demand, within 30 to 60 seconds. So if you're tired of being the "Excel expert" at work feel free to pass them on to us. Also happy to answer any questions. Tidbit: Most popular questions tend to be formulas, vlookups, conditional formatting, pivots. [1] https://www.excelchat.co
Ill take a serious look. Theoretically, this could be a huge boon for all the small businesses I work with.
I spreadsheet on my own for fun to solve physics problems and do video games calculations. I will take my free trial for sure.
Everyone should be using airtable now
It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel.
Everyone should be using airtable now
I agree it's incredible! Everyone owes it to themselves to try it for 5 min if not yet familiar. Its as easy and intuitive as excel (if not more) and has many of the benefits of a database plus a great interface, document attachments, integrated maps, etc.
People say "use a real database", fine, but where is the visual data entry? Where are the easy adhoc reports? Where are the forms? I guess if you're on Windows you can use Microsoft Access, but that's the only accesible tool I know of that doesn't require a team of programmers or an enterprise license for some Oracle/SAP type monstrosity.
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It's less "not wanting to help people" and more "once people know you're 'the Excel person' they come to you for everything to do with Excel". It's very similar to being 'the computer person' in a family/group of friends and everyone coming to you with all their various tech support questions. At a certain point, it starts ruining your productivity since you get taken out of your regular job to do these one time help…
There is a difference between "doing other people's job" and "enabling them to learn on their own" in my experience. Explaining to someone why it is better to use INDEX MATCH in lieu of VLOOKUP will never ruin my productivity.
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My most dreaded words with Excel are: > Can you help me with VLOOKUP? Followed shortly by: > I'm having trouble with a Pivot chart.
I don't get people who have trouble with Pivot tables. Literally drag and drop things until you get what you need.