What am I Doing?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

To Excel Or Not to Excel

[Voice Over:]
Today's diary entry is sponsored by, Peet's Coffee.  Peet's Coffee.  We're nature's liquid "roid rage."

Dear Diary,

I can not stand it anymore!  I am sick and tired of being told how to format my reports.  For those that know me I spend a lot of time on my formatting.  It's probably gotten me into trouble because I take too long to turn something in.

In fact, who else do you know, Diary, that has been able to successfully put lightning bolts into a PowerPoint presentation?  Huh!?  Me, baby, me.  That's right, a grown man putting lightning bolts into a presentation.

K.C. (Chief of the 11th Floor-ees), are you out there?  Did you not love those lightning bolts?  Oh, wait, this is a diary, he won't be reading this.  Any ways, they were cool.

As I was saying yesterday, we're closing our second quarter, and I've been turning in lots of reports.  Yesterday afternoon we had a department meeting about our reports -- because they went to a committee for review -- and there were some changes to make.

Do you know what my boss had the nerve to do?  She told me to change 20.0% to 20%.  Excuse me!?!  You're calling me out because I put ".0%"?  Unbelievable.  And this is coming from the Ruler of "We don't format our Excel charts" Magical Kingdom.

I was beside myself Diary.  I have been here 1.5 months and I have yet to see an Excel chart that has been reformatted from the Chart Wizard's default settings.  Look at this...

Excel Chart

How ugly is that?  This is an actual chart that is going to the Executive Management team here at [...BEEP...][?].  It's atrocious.  A complete disregard for showing any amount of effort.  That's why I'm so hawked up on Peet's, Diary.  I needed something to get me through today, because I'm still burning inside.

It's ironic to me, that the very word of the program used to create this chart, Excel.  Is also something that my colleagues are not striving for... Excellence.

Peet's Matt[?] out!

Tags: excel, peet's matt, coffee
.

3 comments:

Given said...

We are big into formatting. Everything needs a label and a date, title bar, etc. We don't do a lot of graphs, but it would never go out like that if we did. Fight the power! Format!

Anonymous said...

Hey big man - Be careful, KC is watching!!!! Hope you are doing well over there at [BLEEP}. Try to refrain from leaning back to far as not only could that be a fatal career move but it will also give your office buddy plenty to talk to you about.

KC

Aaron & Sara Warren said...

Wow! You got KC looking at yuor blog! LUCKY!!!!!

That "actual" chart is a disgrace! Keep formatting alive, Matt! If not for the company, for the love of mankind!!!!