Oz du Soleil still remembers the first time he discovered the real value of Excel in resolving a pesky data problem.
“I was working in a call center, and customers kept calling up with the same kinds of complaints. I was in charge of a program where people would get awards when they completed their continuing education, and I had to look up people who completed it and send out this gold pin and a certificate. And the admins would call up and say, ‘You people sent me this one again, and you didn’t send me these other two? You people! You people!’” he recalled with a laugh.
“And I would get these canned reports sent to me, and I could tell they were wrong. So after a while I would say, ‘Just stop sending me that dang report. I will write a query, and then get this big data dump and just peel it down myself in Excel.’ So that’s where I really got into Excel—and all I could do at that time was drag stuff around, and filter and sort, and hand-color cells. I didn’t know Excel really, I didn’t know data. I just saw myself as a guy who was solving problems.”
Take a look at the full blog post here.
Cheers,
Iqra
Office Insider Community Manager
Become an Office Insider and gaining exclusive access to new features and help shape the future of Office. Join Now: Windows | Mac | iOS | Android