An Ordeal to Excel

In our lives we make a lot of friends – Real and Virtual, both. These days our number of virtual friends has gone up thanks to social media. These virtual friends help us to get glimpses of lives of our real friends, even if we are not in touch with them.

I made one such virtual friend, not an ‘online’ but an ‘offline’ one, since I became a working professional. This friend of mine has a plethora of friends all over the world as it strives to be ‘user friendly’. It is none other than Microsoft Excel, hailing from the famous Microsoft Office family. Excel has been my ‘friend-in-law’ as Elaine in the famous sitcom Seinfeld would say. It is my ‘friend-in-law’ as it is friends with many of my colleagues. “It is our bread and butter”, they often say.

Microsoft Excel has been my acquaintance since school days. I remember that in Class 8 we were taught some basic functions of Excel. Soon it became a faint memory. During MBA days, I got to know it a little better. But again it was buried under the heap of other subjects to be learnt. We were better friends with Excel’s brother, Microsoft PowerPoint. As MBA students then, PowerPoint presentations were a hope to get better marks and a means to articulate our ideas well. In an effort to look creative and professional at the same time, we resorted to Prezi presentations once in a while. I remember how much I enjoyed making presentations, even as a school kid. Creativity is better displayed. Since writing happened to me, Microsoft Word became my amigo fulfilling my desire to save papers. Though I missed my handwritten drafts with umpteen cancellations and alterations, typing my thoughts on a laptop reminds me of Carrie Bradshaw in the series Sex & The City.

So, let me get back with ‘How I Met Microsoft Excel’. Let me quote it like Ted Mosby, “Readers, today I am going to tell you an incredible story, the story of how I met Microsoft Excel.” In fact, it is a journey with several ups and downs, like any relationship. In Finance world, Excel holds a position of supreme importance. Graphs and pivot tables help to get a bird’s eye view of the huge data that forms its basis. I could understand the significance of Excel better only after ‘diving’ into it, as it is believed to be an ocean of countless functions. It is said that it is nearly impossible to master entire Excel. My knowledge of Excel could be considered smaller than a drop in this (Pacific) ocean. Functions like Vlookup have become daily colleagues, coming to rescue and fill in the blanks of huge data. However, the ominous appearance of ‘#N/A’ values come as a huge disappointment as it requires further digging for data from other sources. Excruciating scenario would be to enter the #N/A values manually! With so many keyboard shortcuts, working on Excel can be quicker and easier.

In my professional experience of 10 months now, Excel has taught me an important virtue -- Patience. Immense Patience. Often we work on Excel files which are loaded with information involving thousands and lakhs of rows, making it slower to open and operate on. They remind me of women in Mauritania. As the tradition in Mauritania goes, girls are force fed by their families in order to look presentable future brides hailing from well-to-do families. As a result of this force feeding, women suffer from obesity and other health disorders, which refrain them from carrying out daily household activities. Similarly, Excel sheets of huge sizes suffer from low, tortoise-like speed! Many a times I stare at my screen blankly, listening to the gasping sounds coming from my computer as it tries hard to process the data that I (force) feed in it. My eyes are fixated at the bottom of the screen looking at the words ‘Calculating: (4 Processor(s)): 1%, 2%....’ till the calculation reaches 100%. A sense of relief finally sweeps over as work regains normalcy after a much longer wait. Sometimes the wait is as long as 10 to 20 minutes or even more, in worst case scenarios. In the meanwhile, sitting at my desk, an avid reader like me engages herself in the fictional interesting world residing in a novel. The distraction is much needed when time comes to a standstill. In a fast paced professional world, such moments of waiting act like hindrance.

There are times when Excel retaliates through non co-operation movement when there are problems with the server. After working on the file by investing significant amount of time, I  proudly hit the keys Ctrl+S with a sense of accomplishment. As though with a vengeance, Excel comes up with a heart shattering message: ‘Document not saved’. Still, not losing my hope I try to save it on my desktop. But Excel plays dirty further by not letting me save my piece of work even on my desktop. There are also times when I am busy working on something and Excel suddenly goes AWOL by saying ‘Microsoft Excel has stopped working’ and I am left with my mouth agape. If I am fortunate enough, some of my data is recovered, like an aftermath. The sentiment is similar to a calculator which stops working during an Accounts paper! If Excel is an ocean, then such sinister messages can push you into the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth located in the Pacific Ocean. Then again follows the drudgery of redoing some of the work done!

Nothing in this world is perfect, be it humans or machines. Yet we accept the people around us along with their imperfections and build lasting relationships. My journey with Excel so far is filled with bittersweet memories. As an amateur, I am still delving into the depths of Excel. It is a golden rule, that to master anything, start from its basics. If any tautological relationship can be established, I would put it as learning the alphabets and roots of a language before learning words and then going on to be proficient in it. I see my colleagues everyday working very efficiently on Excel, as though they have befriended Excel since childhood. ‘Experience teaches you to be better on Excel’, they say. The ease, with which they hit the keys and get the accurate results, truly marvels me. I silently mouth ‘Bravo!’ when they solve my queries when I am caught in the net of doubts.

Now as I finish my litany of experiences with Excel and come out of my reverie, I stare back at my computer screen and see that the Excel sheet I have been working on has finally ‘processed’ and it smiles at me for having done my work. I brace myself to work further on it, trying to understand it better every time. I am sure that some day we will be the best of buddies, enjoying each other’s company. Let’s see how many more lessons I get to learn from this ‘user friendly’ application the world knows of!