Monday 12 October 2009

Back to work...........

Having just spent the entire weekend exhausting myself on an autumn 'spring-clean', today has dawned bright and sunny after the relentless grey drizzle of the past two days.

Tackled the workroom this morning, which is always a mess no matter how much tidying up and/or clearing out I do. At least it's now moderately tidy, which is as much I can hope for for the foreseeable future, especially in the run up to two fairs next month.

Having forsworn all displacement activity for the duration (cleaning is not displacement activity. Neither is ironing *sigh*) I decided to get properly organised for the working week ahead, and do a proper stock check, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

And yes, it is a good idea. Except it is spawning yet more good ideas, the foremost of which is the necessity of creating a spreadsheet, which will instantly calculate quantities, cost totals etc, and let me see at a glance exactly what I have in stock and what I still need to make.

Which in itself is a very useful tool.

Except.

Excel and I don't exactly see eye to eye on many things. We had a falling out a while back and although we've reinstated an uneasy truce, a full rapprochement clearly isn't on the cards.

It all stems from my dyscalculia, which basically means I'm pants with numbers. Excel knows this and takes unfair advantage of it at every opportunity.

For example, if I want it to add A & B then deduct C, I confidently write the formula in the cell and click enter, waiting in excited anticipation for the answer to magically appear.

Excel then smirkily announces #VALUE! Usually in bright red.

That's all. Just #VALUE!

No help or suggestions about where I went wrong, or a reassuring hug and cup of tea.

So small wonder that whenever I try to do anything in Excel it usually ends in tears.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love Excel. We used to have Lotus 123 and when we got the new computer it had Excel and I hated it at first but I do all my accounts on it and it works for me.

Stick at it - if I can master it then anyone can.

Joyce

Sandra Morris said...

I did a course on Excel once so I've no excuse really.

Except if you don't use it everyday it's easy to forget even the basics.

Mainly it's because numbers just aren't my forte.