this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 88 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It will live in a folder with:

Spreadsheet(1).xls Spreadsheet - shortcut.lnk Spreadsheet(2) - Copy.xls New Spreadsheet - DO NOT USE.xls

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago (11 children)

I have colleagues who have 20 copies of the same document with slight variations named like this in a folder. I honestly don't understand how they function at work.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago

Sort by last modified

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (9 children)

I work in Finance at my company and we always save revised copies for Excel files instead of saving over.

But we also have strict rules on it. File name is always "xxxx_Workbook Template Name_MMDDYY.xlsx" or "_YYYY_MM.xlsx", depending on how often it gets updated.

Older versions get moved to a subfolder. It helps us go back and find out what something was if there was a mistake or revert back if Excel done fucks up.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 10 months ago (23 children)

IT guy here, Excel is a data analytics tool, not a database, not a word processor, not a sales system, not a photo album, not a notepad, not a paint program.

If at anytime you are treating Excel as a database, you are doing it wrong, and you deserve me mocking you when asking for help recovering it when it breaks, I won't as I am not a dick, but if I did, you would deserve it.

If you want a database, build an SQL database, or have someone build it for you, not me.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Whew, glad you didn't say it wasn't a password manager...

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (9 children)

My old boss used it a password manager, no kidding...

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

I work for a Fortune 500 company and I can tell you the reason why excel (and Google sheets) are used inappropriately is because cyber data controls make creating and maintaining a database very hard. Not only that but the skills required to know how to make a table in a spreadsheet is nowhere near the skills required to deploy, maintain, and provision a database table.

Spreadsheets don't require a UI to be built. People don't have to learn a new app just to be able to see data.

I'm an IT guy too and I'm the first to tell you that spreadsheets suck. But when it takes an act of a board to create new tables in a database, I tell ya....might as well just use spreadsheets.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

Excel is a game dev and game test kit.

Like Snakes, Bowman, CimCity, etc

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

The problem is, people dig to deep into excel functions, some of them could easily build a database or do some programming (if/else), but they know nothing outside of their ms-office -ecosystem.

Just a hint for ms-office devs, why not a low-code-builder with SQL backend. Just call it squirrel or powersql or something.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's more than just knowing things outside the ms office ecosystem. People use the tools they have. So when IT locks down the whole system and it takes an act of God to get anything else installed, you find ways to hammer that nail with whatever blunt object you have in hand.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 10 months ago (7 children)

The customer wants the brand new website we are building them to be able to load data from several types of excel files and then email them an excel file with results. Please shoot me...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Sometimes it's okay to fire a client.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago

Like... into the sun with an oversized circus cannon?

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 months ago (4 children)

ITT, very salty IT guys... I'd rather folks use Excel then some home made stuff. That's the real nightmare fuel. VB, not .net, just VB, from 1995. You'll beg to have bad Excel after you deal with that stuff. 😵😱😭

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The scripting in Excel is VBA, which is VB6. So, basically what I'm saying is that you can have both!

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (6 children)

My old company had a revenue system built in-house that only could run on MS-DOS. We needed a VM just to use it.

I left that company in 2019 and they were still using it.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

Me, being scolded for using ipynb apps to deliver rapid feature turnaround to customers, generating a million dollars in revenue:

Our finance department, tracking that revenue in a 700MB excel spreadsheet which is version controlled by a 13 year old email thread:

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

what do you mean, Excel isn't a Database?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

It is according to UK's National Health Service: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54423988

I love this part: "To handle the problem, PHE is now breaking down the test result data into smaller batches to create a larger number of Excel templates. That should ensure none hit their cap."

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago

My dad asked if I could look at a spreadsheet he uses at work, maybe fix a couple of things that he has to manually adjust. This meme is frightfully accurate, the earliest parts of this thing are older than some of the junior devs on my team.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago

I've been on both sides of this as a sysadmin for almost 15 years then as a data analyst. IT has so many requirements and barriers and any end user tool you have free access to will possibly be an easier route than procuring a boutique solution through IT. Yes of course IT will do it proper but that takes longer, just build a tool in excel and use an access database on the file server cause its something you can just immediately do. Yeah its not "right" by IT standards and causes headaches for IT but sometimes it's whatever gets the job done next week is what's going to be in the businesses best interest.

Also a lot of these tools are used how they were designed to be used. If a couple people have a function they need fulfilled and some excel tool with macros can provide that in less than a month and save those people a ton of time then I don't see a problem with it. Just make sure SLA is very clear make it clear they can't blame IT if there's problems, offer the best advice for risk management.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (13 children)

At my old job, they had an HR person that was not qualified to be an HR person, and she "accidentally" sent an Excel spreadsheet of everyone's wages and salaries to the entire company email distro.

  1. She was not fired, but put on a suspension.
  2. Don't know why she had an unsecured Excel file of important information like that.
  3. Everyone was pissed lol
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Everyone was pissed

as someone who had worked in transparent jurisdictions: everyone should absolutely be pissed about not having this info available publicly always in real time.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

One of my favorite things to do as a leader is encourage my employees to discuss their salary. Superiors often get pissed before I tell them that "well it's too late now, and asking them not to is literally illegal."

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (6 children)

It shouldn't matter that she revealed wages. Letting the company act like wages should be secret empowers the company to screw employees who don't realize their value.

In fact, it's illegal for them to tell non-management employees to keep their wages secret.

As a government employee - everyone's wages are public record at my job and it causes zero issues.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Hero. Salary negotiations must have been a riot that year lol

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On one of my last jobs they required us to do a straightforward but time consuming task with excel, it was ideal to automate it in software but my manager won't ask the dev team because he said it would be very expensive and they were focused on more important things. I did it with macros on excel and word and kept it to me and my coworker, so we had like two hours of free time everyday, only had to look like we were busy with the sheet.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

My take is that Excel is great for people to throw together quick and efficient tools for their own use. The problem is when these get distributed and then everyone uses something that has no version control or QA/QC.

I see this a lot because an engineer gets annoyed with IT or existing software restrictions and learns enough VBA to be dangerous. (Spoiler, it me.)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Didn't the UK's covid track and trace system break because it was running on excel

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It was running fine until ppl really started getting sick!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I love Excel! The best part of my job is where I get to use Excel. The worst parts are where I have to use power point or interact with other people. Sadly, most of time is spent on PPT and interacting these days. :(

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Nah, the worst part is when I have to watch someone else use Excel.

YOU DON'T NEED TO RIGHT CLICK AND SELECT COPY. YOU CAN JUST PRESS CTRL+C.

And virtually none of them know how to paste values, so all the templates end up messed up.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

When I was in high-school I made an inventory management/pos for my school's merch shop in excel and vbs. It was the single worst thing I have ever made and how I discovered what feature creep was. Got me a course credit though!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Having worked in 3 companies, Excel sure seems like the most popular database.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am guilty of this. I have a set of fucking ghastly macros that do monthly number crunching for me. Currently moving it all into SQLite and R.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Did you know? Many published indexes (indexes like S&P500 etc...) are computed with excel

I TOTALLY trust their values

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Here's the sign up sheet for the Holiday meal!"

.xls

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

I saw a presentation in excel once, I want sum it up here, but it was pointless.

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