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Brad is a freelance writer trying to make it big in the video game industry. When he's not desperately pleading for your attention with his weekly Employee Evolution column, he is an editorialist for 
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When I gave my notice that I’d be leaving my padded cell (I mean cubicle), I assumed that the next couple weeks would be pretty dull, possibly downright boring. I had lined up all my favorite blogs and news sites for daily reading, and had even calculated how much walking around time I’d have on a daily basis. One day I’d go over the marketing suite and offer my unsolicited advice on how to sell our company (“The kids today totally love being told to respect authority and never question the status quo”), and another day I’d head over to accounting and tell them my brilliant scheme about how to maximize profits by simply telling the IRS that we don’t have any money while hiding it all under rugs and behind paintings.
My carefree days were not to be however, as I was quickly brought back down to Earth by the horror that is “ongoing projects.” You know those things that sit on the bottom of the pile for months on end because they aren’t really mission critical and there’s no real rush to finish them? Well, turns out you have to turn those in before you quit a job, otherwise they won’t give you your last paycheck. And they throw tomatoes at you.
I have three of these mean little projects blocking my exit, and I’ve managed to knock out a couple of them without much trouble. The last one presents an issue though, as it’s one of those tasks so mindless that it’s hard to work on it for more than ten minutes at a time without needing to take a break in order to retain sanity.
It’s sad to think that the human brain can be defeated by a simple spreadsheet, but I’ve always maintained that Excel is evil incarnate and now it’s out to finish me off before I can find the source of its power and end its reign of terror for good.
So now I’m in the world’s least thrilling race against time to get this last touch of work done, work which I’ve neglected for months but now suddenly must complete in a few days.
Oh well, this time next week I’ll be free of spreadsheets, staff meetings, and ongoing projects forever.
Or at least until I get a new job.
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Excel is your friend. I use it more than any healthy person should.
I can’t help but laugh @ the Excel quip. When I was working as a technical lead I lived & died by Excel (aka - Poor Man’s MS Project). I use to make the joke that I could in fact rule the world with an Excel spreadsheet. Notably though I can barely make a simple add formula. It was all about the strange & enchanting thrill of color coding & column sorting. After awhile I couldn’t stop myself. My project lived and died based on my ability to manipulate spreadsheets. Without them work ground to a halt, I was rendered unable to function. Co-workers were forced to place me in front of my laptop with an open spreadsheet and bust out smelling salts.
Anyway, congrats on breaking free from this set of shackles. As an FYI: I’ve been a Wisconsin girl my whole life and one of the few other places I could live (& I’ve seen most of this country) is Maryland. It has a quirky feel in a good way. John Waters has the best description I’ve heard about MD:
“I would never want to live anywhere but Baltimore… It’s as if every eccentric in the South decided to move north, ran out of gas in Baltimore, and decided to stay.”
Personally I hate Excel as well. It’s too easy to get too much information in too small of a space. Pages of numbers . . . I try to stay as far away from them as possible. I think it’s a personality thing though, because some people I know love Excel and all the data that goes into it.
while I was working for one of the big consultancies years ago, there was the saying:
“you need to master Powerpoint to make consultant (from analyst), and you need to master Excel to make it to Manager”
Excel is also a great job insurance: once your spreadsheet gets compliocated enough, nobody else can maintain it
Have fun at any new job!
If you would like to make your excel journies easier in the future I do suggest utilizing the under appriciated macro.
office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HP052012011033.aspx
I really enjoying doing work without actually having to do it.
“Well, turns out you have to turn those in before you quit a job, otherwise they won’t give you your last paycheck.”
Are you sure this is legal in your state?
@Klaus: I think my (future) brother-in-law got promoted due to an important excel model that only he could figure out.
On my side though, I really like excel. Especially making little graphs and charts. I feel powerful manipulating data. (I’m also a geek!)