Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 435 posts

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#111

Post by cm2187 »

OskarS wrote: post #86

You know who's awesome at Excel? Martin Shkreli. You know, the Wall Street asshole who's in jail now? A while back, someone told me "hey, dude, there are these videos on YouTube where Martin Shkreli uses Excel, and they're fucking magic. It's like the first time you watched someone who's really good at Vim. " It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel.…

And looking at the video, I'd say that's a slightly above average level of excel skill compared to what you can find sometimes on trading floors.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#112

Post by nashashmi »

pge wrote: post #71
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #51

Excel would be fine if people didn't keep creating spreadsheets with it.

it’s even worse when they use it as a database...

Excel is "presentation first, data second, function third" mode of information input for most people. It is a great starter, but when it gets intense, it a perfect example on teaching when to transition to Access, or at least organize data better in excel.

Similarly, I used to struggle SO much with learning PHP frameworks because I had a "presentation first, data second, function third" methodology of doing things. After realizing how people were using Excel compared to my Access approach, sure I began to respect them more but that helped advance my own learning of frameworks.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#113

Post by Bishonen88 »

OskarS wrote: post #86

You know who's awesome at Excel? Martin Shkreli. You know, the Wall Street asshole who's in jail now? A while back, someone told me "hey, dude, there are these videos on YouTube where Martin Shkreli uses Excel, and they're fucking magic. It's like the first time you watched someone who's really good at Vim. " It's true: [0]. Say what you will about that little heartless douchebag, he's fucking awesome at using Excel.…

Does being good at excel mean that one knows the shortcuts of navigation? The video indeed showed that Martin knew his ALT+, CTRL+ etc., but is that what differentiates an excel pro from a newbie? I thought that 'knowing' excel goes much deeper than the navigational shortcuts: solver, array formulas, powerpivot, vba etc. etc. - this is what I'd call more sophisticated excel features. If someone clicks the number format dialog or hits ctrl+! and then goes from there, surely shows if someone uses excel every day but not if he 'knows' excel.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#114

Post by yashap »

drspacemonkey wrote: post #32
css wrote: post #5

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…

>Enabling people to learn more about the software they use every day is better for everyone involved I agree, but the flaw in your assumption is that the people who want help from "the office Excel guy" want to learn more. Much like being the "family computer guy", the person asking for help is really asking for you to just fix the problem.

Indeed. I actually really enjoy teaching and mentoring, and do a lot of it. I’m also quite experienced with Excel, used to be an analyst before I became a dev, so I’m often the “Excel guy.”

When other devs come to me for help, they generally want to learn, and I’m happy to teach them. Most devs are really into learning technical skills. Same goes for MOST product managers, sales people, etc. But there are definitely SOME people on the business side who actively DON’T want to learn technical skills. They have some report they have to do, it involves Excel, and they just want me to do it for them, they don’t want to learn how to do it themselves. Generally I’ll help these people once or twice, but after that it’s “Google it.”

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#115

Post by zaphar »

imhoguy wrote: post #53
dragonshed wrote: post #16

I suck at excel, but confession: i know how to make Installer programs and I don't tell anyone anything about them, EVER. I learned how to make MSIs packages and NSIS installers about 15 years ago and it didn't stop until I completely redacted the info and experience and changed jobs.

Know your pain, I know how to use grep/awk/sed/..., now I am "logs investigation" expert too often, ugh..

I'm not sure which is worse. Being that awk/sed guy or being that Git guy.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#117

Post by commandlinefan »

css wrote: post #5

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…

> I do not understand the mindset of not wanting to help other people.

Not to pile on or anything, because that phrase seems to have touched a nerve - but, I don't mind helping other people at all. I do mind when I spend 8 hours at work helping other people, and don't have time to complete the work that I was actually supposed to be doing, and then get criticized for not getting the work I was assigned to do done. It doesn't help to err in the other direction, either, though - once everybody knows that you know how to do "x", even if you're swamped with other work, you can't turn them away, or it'll haunt you on your next performance review. Hence the article's original advice: never let anybody know you're good at "x".

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#118

Post by gerdesj »

sin7 wrote: post #94
guelo wrote: post #72

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.

I use PostgreSQL, which is a real database. I use DBeaver as the database manager. It allows me to enter data by typing it in. For reports, I query the data. It has autocomplete. No forms. For presentation, I toss the data on Excel. Bold the headers. Change the number type (pct, $, etc) to the correct one. I would say that it has made my life a lot easier. There is one repository where the data is held. If I mess up,…

Me too but throw in MariaDB as well (I'm not exactly bi-lingual but can speak both with a dodgy accent and know some words better in one and some in the other.) I use Libre Office because Excel doesn't work very well on Arch Linux out of the box.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#119

Post by commandlinefan »

samspenc wrote: post #55

I've always wondered: these clunky Excel sheets are used at billion-dollar companies. Why don't they invest in building a sane web application (or similar) that can do all the validation and calculations in a much better looking interface that is suited for the job / application?

> building a sane web application

Every time I build a sane web application, the first feature I'm asked to add is: "can you add an 'export to excel' function?"

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#120

Post by Loughla »

wwweston wrote: post #76
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a career educator, and ruling out learning disabilities that are not appropriately accommodated, I believe that generally means you're not doing a good job of explaining in a way the other person is capable of grasping. Blame goes both ways. And the original point still stands. It is productive to teach someone to improve their own processes.

This is a reasonable approach for someone whose primary role is educating others. It rapidly recedes from the realm of reasonable considerations once we're talking about someone providing informal Excel support to colleagues as an extracurricular activity.

I disagree. You tell them how to do it. You ensure they have no questions. You have them show you that they know how.

Then you destroy their work area with a hammer when they come back for more help on the same thing. (obviously humor)

It's just like teaching.

Source: I'm the 'excel guy' in my service area. I tell them I'll show you twice and I'll make sure you don't have any questions. Then I'll show you youtube videos. I'm not in the business of 'doing' for anyone.

Post reply on HN