Update on work

[Anglewannabe]

So far things are going good. But I must admit, there is VERY different for me. Sometimes I think I could be sleeping at my desk all day and my manager would not care. At my old job, I was strictly forbidden to send out an email without first printing it and letting my ream lead read it. Now, my manager just told me to send anything and not copy him.

I think I am nervous with all this freedom. Here is an example and I admit, the details can be boring to read

I had a form in Excel with a bunch of dates such as 10/3/2015 and 10/10/2015 for October 3rd and October 10th. I had to use the name of the day. So I used an excel formula that spit out Tuesday and Saturday. I was just about to sent the list out when I decided to double check. Well all of a sudden, it hit me, if there are exactly 7 days between the 2 dates, they have to be the same day of the week. It turned out that Excel was reading 10/3/2015 as March 10. No matter what I did, I could not format Excel to a consistent format. I finally did a work around. When I told my boss about it, he obviously didn’t care about the details

So here is my fear. There is no one who double checks my work and to be honest, I don’t think anyone would have the time, desire or Excel know how to help with this situation. I am so petrified of making a mistake, it going out of the office and then making the company look real bad. I am used to people testing an Excel macro before it is officially been approved to be used.

I guess I am trying to adjust to this new culture

Angie

 

[coachdennis]

If they did not think you were capable of doing the job they would not hire you. They are also expecting you to solve your problems and use your own critical thinking skills.

Now, if you have serious questions and can’t get a clear answer, then that can be a problem.

With freedom, comes responsibility.

 

[Beryllos]

… At my old job, I was strictly forbidden to send out an email without first printing it and letting my [team] lead read it…

Be glad you don’t work there any more. That is an excellent example of micro-managing. When the boss is redoing the worker’s job, it’s bad for the workers, bad for the boss, and bad for the company. (Also printing every email is crazy!)

It would be different in an office like a publisher where there are different levels of writing and editing. A reporter or staff writer would knock out an accurate and well-written draft, then editor would go over it and maybe correct the style, and then a proofreader would look it over for errors, and then hopefully it’s ready to go out the door

… Now, my manager just told me to send anything and not copy him.

Good. That’s the way it should be. Do your best. You will make mistakes; learn from them. After you’ve made and learned from enough mistakes, you will be an even better worker. You might even become the manager. (It’s an old joke that they should take the one who has made the most mistakes and put him/her in charge.)

 

[Catholic1954]

Everybody makes mistakes; just deal with them as they come up. It sound like so far, so good.

 

[1ke]

It isn’t that your boss “doesn’t care”, it is that your boss hired you to do a job and trusts you to do it.

You can still ask someone to review a document before it goes out, or double check a formula for you, but use your own judgment on when that is necessary. (Such as when you have created a new macro). If you don’t think people have the skill to review your Excel work then institute your own quality control and testing on your work. Put in data where you know what the answer in cell X should be and test run it. Create a testing checklist for all new spreadsheets.

Also, did you ever figure out the date issue? That is European date format, did that cell, column, row, or the whole sheet get set with Eurpoean standards?

 

[Anglewannabe]

Also, did you ever figure out the date issue? That is European date format, did that cell, column, row, or the whole sheet get set with Eurpoean standards?

First an explanation. There is a PDF file and I need to copy certain data into Excel since the customer wants it that way. I exported the file in Excel format. Some of the dates in the export are one format and some are being read as another. I even tried to format a blank worksheet to one date format and copy and paste values. After 2 hours I gave up.

What I finally did, I copied the column from the export file with the dates into another tab, removed duplicates and sorted in ascending order. In the next column, I copied the dates such as ‘Sat Oct 3’. Then I got the macro to do a Vlookup.

There is about 100 rows of data to compile for the customer. And, the exported file will on occasion not line up and what is usually in column D will appear in column H for some strange reason. So, after, I just manually checked everything against the PDF version of the file and fixed the 2-3 errors. By using filters, it really didn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. If I try to type, it would probably take over an hour and I would still feel a need to double check. For now, I think that is the solution I will stick with since I doubt the desired data will grow to over 100 rows. Also, I think the other solution (which I will not do as the new girl) would be to call the software company and ask them to make the Excel export file better formatted

Angie

 

[underacloud]

Angie,

I lost interest in your excel problem barely two sentences into your explanation. I assume your new boss lost interest one sentence in, which is why he hired someone to deal with this sort of thing. And that’s you. Well done on securing a new job with a boss who already has confidence in your abilities! I expect that you’ll begin to find the pros to outweigh the cons in this scenario.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I lost interest in your excel problem barely two sentences into your explanation. .

I am not surprised since this is not the first time I hear this. However, I am the type who loves these details and would have been hanging on the edge of my seat listening

 

[Sarcelle]

First an explanation. There is a PDF file and I need to copy certain data into Excel since the customer wants it that way. I exported the file in Excel format. Some of the dates in the export are one format and some are being read as another. I even tried to format a blank worksheet to one date format and copy and paste values. After 2 hours I gave up.

What I finally did, I copied the column from the export file with the dates into another tab, removed duplicates and sorted in ascending order. In the next column, I copied the dates such as ‘Sat Oct 3’. Then I got the macro to do a Vlookup.

There is about 100 rows of data to compile for the customer. And, the exported file will on occasion not line up and what is usually in column D will appear in column H for some strange reason. So, after, I just manually checked everything against the PDF version of the file and fixed the 2-3 errors. By using filters, it really didn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. If I try to type, it would probably take over an hour and I would still feel a need to double check. For now, I think that is the solution I will stick with since I doubt the desired data will grow to over 100 rows. Also, I think the other solution (which I will not do as the new girl) would be to call the software company and ask them to make the Excel export file better formatted

Angie

It seems your boss’ trust in you is well placed.

I used to write a lot of Excel macros in VBA. It’s fun getting Excel to do what you want. But then again I am a geek.

 

[1ke]

First an explanation. There is a PDF file and I need to copy certain data into Excel since the customer wants it that way. I exported the file in Excel format. Some of the dates in the export are one format and some are being read as another. I even tried to format a blank worksheet to one date format and copy and paste values. After 2 hours I gave up.

What I finally did, I copied the column from the export file with the dates into another tab, removed duplicates and sorted in ascending order. In the next column, I copied the dates such as ‘Sat Oct 3’. Then I got the macro to do a Vlookup.

There is about 100 rows of data to compile for the customer. And, the exported file will on occasion not line up and what is usually in column D will appear in column H for some strange reason. So, after, I just manually checked everything against the PDF version of the file and fixed the 2-3 errors. By using filters, it really didn’t take more than 10-15 minutes. If I try to type, it would probably take over an hour and I would still feel a need to double check. For now, I think that is the solution I will stick with since I doubt the desired data will grow to over 100 rows. Also, I think the other solution (which I will not do as the new girl) would be to call the software company and ask them to make the Excel export file better formatted

Angie

Ah, exported data. Yuck. Definitely get with IT to address getting a different export format if this is going to be a repeat thing.

 

[EEgirl]

When the data formatting is not working correctly, I always find treating the data as a string will solve your problems. Try using functions like find (), left (), mid (), etc.

 

[EEgirl]

There is also the cdate() function, which is probably the fastest and most straightforward solution to this particular issue.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

Since you know when you are getting it right, and what checks to perform and what additional procedures, and subject to expert (name removed by moderator)ut e.g from EEgirl, this leaving you to it is a good trait on the part of the boss!