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

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

#141

Post by eric_h »

jiveturkey wrote: post #82
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. 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 Goog…

The ability to compose queries and sift through google results and find the answer to a question in a timely manner is a skill in and of itself that not everyone has.

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

#142

Post by grigjd3 »

grigjd3 wrote: post #104
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…

It isn't about being helpful or not, but about letting yourself be abused or not. Often times, the only difference between myself with a technology and the person asking me for help is that I am willing to read the documentation while the other isn't. Often, the person seeking my help doesn't even realize they are abusing me but still, if I point out that they can read the documentation as well as I can, I get a look…

On the other hand, if somebody asked me what resources they could use to figure something out, then I'd be more than happy to help.

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

#144

Post by debaserab2 »

I've always said that if I ever do one thing with my child, I'll make sure they understand how to use VLOOKUP in excel. If I do that, I'm pretty sure they'll be set for life.

Every office I've worked in those that can perform VLOOKUP's correctly become the Wizards of the office.

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

#145

Post by quickthrower2 »

dang wrote: post #65
miki123211 wrote: post #18

For me, this article shows as paywalled. Paywalled articles should be banned, or at least some indication of a paywall should be included in the title, as people sometimes do with PDFs.

If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread. This is in the FAQ at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html and there's more explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Looking at their other comments it seems the OP is blind. I could see why this would be especially annoying for a blind person if you only found out once you start reading. Not sure what the answer is but I thought it was worth mentioning.

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

#146

Post by BWStearns »

DonHopkins wrote: post #130
BWStearns wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience not 1 person in 50 of people who "aren't computer people" will retain that information regardless of how much time you spend. I once worked with a guy who would come to me for everything from excel stuff to "help I can't find this email in my gmail account". I tried to stress to him that I had my own work to do (write code) but he whined that it would take me just a minute and it might take him 15 or…

Show him how to use Excel to make an invoice for your time he's wasting.

Savage. Wish I had thought of that.

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

#147

Post by intended »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #28
onychomys wrote: post #3

I'm "the excel guy" for a lab of about 100 people, and it is indeed a challenge sometimes. Mostly I just yell at them and tell them to stop using excel sheets as makeshift databases. Then I yell at them some more and make them switch from formulas (which, being written in reverse Polish, are terrible to debug) over to macros. Then I yell at them for recording macros instead of writing them themselves. Then I just do…

There needs to be an Excel "pro mode" where the mouse is disabled and you have to do all navigation by keyboard. People would become so much more efficient that way.

Haha, that’s how analysts were trained at one of my old firms - they just removed the mouse and forced everyone to get work done in short deadlines.

One of the rare times a gaming habit and keyboard skills was an advantage.

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

#148

Post by unsignedint »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #9
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…

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…

And it's one thing if they actually appreciate your help.

In places that people don't realize it's part of their job to learn the tools, it often turns into complaints of "why they designed it that way?" going on and on with dissatisfaction of the system that doesn't read their mind. (And certainly, they will come back with the same question in few days...)

I've been there a decade ago and it was DRAINING that I was just better off not offering the help altogether.

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

#149

Post by debaserab2 »

moomin wrote: post #23
semitext wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, it’s draining. They have no desire or intention to learn. You’re not helping them, you’re just doing their job for them. Yours, former excel guy.

I always looked at it as being great job security.

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

#150

Post by grigjd3 »

intended wrote: post #123
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…

>Excel lacks the community programmers have and also lacks the learning opportunities given by open-source software. Source needed. There’s crap tons of excel help, and the amount of excel queries+answers will easily put other languages to shame. The difference is that excel is not usually treated as an engineering tool, with the various rituals that go with it. In contrast, take a look at how financial analysts lear…

Agreeing with you: just Google excel howto, then see results.
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