this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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[โ€“] kazerniel@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What, I use Excel daily and love it ๐Ÿ˜„

[โ€“] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 4 points 18 hours ago

As a genome biologist, fuck you.

[โ€“] thatchemguy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (2 children)

I got a job recently and they asked me if I know excel. I said yes, but I dont even know how to use formulas

Pray for me ๐Ÿ˜ญ

[โ€“] zibwel@feddit.org 2 points 18 hours ago

Just learn, how hard can it be? Ask AI to help as the other poster suggested.

[โ€“] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Excel is one of the few things copilot has actually been able to help me with. Apparantly microsofts shitty programs understand each other.

[โ€“] thatchemguy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago

Interesting. I will be using that information mwahahaha >:)

[โ€“] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 2 points 21 hours ago

I guess you really...excel at it!

[โ€“] arotrios@lemmy.world 291 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (16 children)

It depends on how long you use it:

Year 1: Ok, this is kinda cool, but why does it keep fucking breaking?

Year 2: How is it still fucking breaking?

Year 3: I just don't fucking care why it keeps breaking. I think I hate this program.

Year 4: I hate this program

Year 5: Let the hate flow through you, consume you. Feel the dark side flowing through your fingertips. Yes. Good. Why is it breaking? It's the end users. Yes... they've been plotting against you from the beginning - hiding columns, erasing formulas and even...

merging cells

Que heavy breathing through a respirator.

Year 6: It's a board meeting. They ask you if you can average all the moving averages of average sales per month and provide an exponential trendline to forecast growth on five million rows of data.

You say "sure, boss, I can knock that for you in Excel in about an hour or two."

Your team leader interjects "I believe what he was trying to say was we'll use Tableau and it will take about a month."

You turn to him with a steely glare.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing."

Year 7: Your team leader is gone after you pointed out he fucked up one of your sheets that run the business by merging a cell. All data flows through you and the holy spreadsheet, and the board is terrified of firing you because no one knows how your sheets work but you and their entire inventory system would collapse if you leave.

But then the inevitable happens. Dissension in the ranks. The juniors talk of python, R, Tableau, Power BI - anything to release your dark hold upon the holy data. You could crush them all with a xlookup chain faster than they can type a SELECT statement. The Rebellion is coming, but you're ready. You've discovered the Data Model, capable of building a relational database behind the hidden moons of Power Pivot, parsing tens of millions of rows - and your Death Star is almost complete.

You're ready to unleash your dark fury when the fucking spreadsheet breaks again.

Year 8: New company. They ask if you know Excel. You just start cackling with a addictive gleam in your eye as tears start streaming down your face.

They hire you on the spot.

All they use is Excel. And Access.

You think, ok, this is kinda cool, but why does it keep fucking breaking?

[โ€“] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 4 points 21 hours ago

This comment should be UNESCO world heritage

[โ€“] ink1ing@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Just started a new job two weeks ago, all they use is Excel and Access. Now you've got me scared, first job out of uni and feels like a lot of pressure.

[โ€“] arotrios@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

Welcome to the dark side, young padawan...

[โ€“] fartsparkles@lemmy.world 66 points 2 days ago

We need a /c/MuseumOfLemmy to preserve this treasure in so that it may be cherished and studied by our children and our childrenโ€™s children and many generations beyond.

[โ€“] whostosay@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago

This is art

[โ€“] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago

Year 7: Your team leader is gone after you pointed out he fucked up one of your sheets that run the business by merging a cell.

I am laughing about how after 7 years nobody has locked the sheets that run the business to avoid this specific thing.

Or maybe they were kocked and the team leader unlocked it so they could break it without saving a backup.

[โ€“] BrowseMan@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Damn as somebody with very little coding or IT background whatsoever but had to learn excel on my last 5 year of work, I understood it all.

Especially the cell merging... Spawn of the devil itself...

Still power query is quite addictive, the main reason why moving to OpenOffice is hard.

[โ€“] feannag@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

There's no way they're using xlookup at year 7. You can pry my index match from my cold dead hands.

[โ€“] xpinchx@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Xlookup works fine for like 90% of cases, I save index match mainly for when I need to return multiple lookup values. In which case I load into BI because I always forget how index match works ๐Ÿ˜ซ

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[โ€“] mmddmm@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago

Why isn't that "Merge Cells" button hidden behind 3 levels of menus up to this day?

[โ€“] xpinchx@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Damn you just described my role but everything happened within a span of 3 years

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[โ€“] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 46 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Excel is a hammer.

When holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Stop using Excel for anything more than simple data extraction and pivot tables, get a custom solution tailored to your needs rather than a monstrous Excel document that consumes 14 GB of RAM to run.

[โ€“] jjffnn 2 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Never!

::: spoiler Spoiler YouTube link: Stand-up Maths - Stand-up comedy routine about Spreadsheets

[โ€“] bfg9k@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We support a financial institution that uses ~30MB Excel sheets with thousands of calculations and they wonder why they can't send it via email or why it has issues when 10 people edit it at once

Just use a goddamn database

[โ€“] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

MyExcelDB powers thousands of institutions daily

[โ€“] psx_crab@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Got it.

use it as calculator

[โ€“] Randelung@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

The bad thing is, they've attached a mediocre screwdriver to the hammer because everybody keeps using the hammer as a screwdriver. But now, everybody STILL uses the hammer as a screwdriver. The screwdriver part used to be a separate tool, but people didn't know how to use it, and now they still don't, even though it comes with instructions.

They really should have kept things separate.

[โ€“] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 49 points 2 days ago (9 children)

I've done things in excel that are an abomination in the eyes of the divine.

I have absolutely 0 regret.

[โ€“] Anomalocaris@lemm.ee 2 points 18 hours ago

i once used an excel sheet to emulated a von Newman architecture ALU+RAM

fun and useless, but very (un)efficient way to calculate Fibonacci numbers

[โ€“] Godnroc@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You have January 1, 1970 regret?

[โ€“] HexesofVexes@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Or false regret, either or.

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[โ€“] Deathray5@lemmynsfw.com 21 points 2 days ago

When I did first line IT support I really loved how it stopped automatically calculating formulas for everyone in HR at the same time

[โ€“] Kolanaki@pawb.social 23 points 2 days ago

"It's not as good as making games in as Unity or Unreal but I can manage."

[โ€“] lnxtx@feddit.nl 17 points 2 days ago

"Excel" 365 ๐Ÿคฎ

[โ€“] Caffeinated_Sloth@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (4 children)

What if I like it? Is there something wrong with me?

[โ€“] Rhaedas@fedia.io 28 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Not at all. You just haven't gotten deep enough into the beast to see the horror.

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[โ€“] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

You are probably using it for its intended purpose, which it Excels at.

[โ€“] AreaSIX@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

I think it's one of my all time favorites. I think people here live in the tech literate bubble who know how to use specialized software for the different things excel does, albeit clunkily. But average people are intimidated by those more advanced tools, and there are a lot of average people in decision making positions who benefit greatly from being able to use excel.

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[โ€“] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago (9 children)

The Libre Office Suite is better, and Free Open Source Software (FOSS).

[โ€“] siha@feddit.uk 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Libreoffice calc is pretty hurrendous tbh

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[โ€“] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Create a table in Libre Office, I'll wait...

(Hint,the devs have flat out stated they will never add tables to Calc, as it's wrong to do).

99% of Excel usage includes a table in the first, or second, sheet. Without tables a spreadsheet app is useless, in my opinion, regardless of how "wrong" it is (and I agree that it's wrong).

Wait excel sheets are pretty much already tables right...

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[โ€“] bappity@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I did a GCSE course on Excel, I learned to get irrationally angry every time a class was scheduled

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