The pursuit of Excelense

Yes, yes, I spelt it that way on purpose. It does have a meaning. Not an error. Oh alright, I’ll stop snapping. I’m entrenched deep in the pursuit of Excelense. Excelense is the fine art of decoding MS Excel.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have an open mind and I’ve accepted all that I can’t change, which in my woeful state is the presence of a computer and all the other thingy-mingy-bitty-bytes that are a part of it. Excel and I have had a fairly pleasant relationship….thus far. We met, the first few dates were quite pleasant and led to a reasonably long relationship. Every day I learn something new, every once in a while I say a little prayer for how blessed I am to have Excel. And then….quite suddenly…..how just like a man! Let me explain…but first I digress while telling you that everything in my life is male.

Right, that is a male dragon on my sidebar (cute, ain’t he? Just like my boyfriends who start off trying to be impressive and end up quite cuddly. Computer cellphone umbrella footwear (!!) …yevverything. And it all works and works well. Just not the way I it to or when I want it to. And eventually there’s the grand cop-out. Arrrrggggghhhh…..who understands the ways of men and machines?

After a gruesome crib-fest, Sir Obnoxious (who is the Knight of profane bullshit but is sometimes quite profound) advised me,

Befriend your computer. Get to be friends. Give it a little pat on the screen every morning. Ask it if it had a good night. Smile at it. And really mean it.

Fine, always ready to give it a shot. Here goes nothing…

So here I am, on a normal harassing working day, communing with the collage on the screen in front of me. No, I do not have the glamourous job of touching up photographs or anything even remotely colourful. Hence, I improvise and add colour to my life. So my Excel workbook with its neon tabs, pastel highlights and themed headers now gets the Conditional Formatting touch as well. Call me an artist.

I rather thought acid green would be a good touch and make the important numbers stand out. Now I am looking at a screen full of green. Errr…that can’t be right. Control+Z hastily and move on. Excel, like a boyfriend sometimes doesn’t like a good colour and won’t be budged. Never mind, pick your battles and all that.

A couple of rows later, I find my mathematical understanding being challenged. Now here I can clearly see the following…

1+0+0+13+0+0+28+0+2+3 = 0!!!!

Undaunted, I decided that the time had arrived to teach my errant boy-child a lesson. Tap-tap-tap impatiently on keys….I’m waiting for the apology, dahling…

1+0+0+13+0+0+28+0+2+3 = 0

*Sigh* Sometimes it helps to find a distraction and come back to the issue when we’re both in a calmer frame of mind. So back we go to changing the tab colours. Blue turns purple, green goes yellow and grey metamorphoses to indigo. And now…are we ready to chat, love?

1+0+0+13+0+0+28+0+2+3 = 0

Drastic times call for drastic measures. Excel-boy is duly warned that if good behaviour is not forthcoming, we will cease talks. Excel, the evil one, knows of all my tantrums and decides that “She’ll come back. She always does!!” And so nose in the air, I shut the workbook.

Then I open it 3 minutes later. Fresh beginnings are always good. Hey sweetie, how’ve you been lately?

1+0+0+13+0+0+28+0+2+3 = 0

I give up. MS Excel like my errant menfolk need to be relegated to the bin. On the other hand, it appears that this is a non-negotiable relationship, at least from my side. So here I am, married to the devil that tells me (a la Chicago)

Darling, are you going to believe what you’ve heard or what I tell you?

Anything you say sweets….just so long as you say the same thing when the IT guy or my boss stop by. As with men, we shall forget about you serving me and I solemnly promise to dedicate my efforts to the pursuit of Excelense.