What is the stupidest thing you have ever done in Excel? Our Excel experts are here to share their own stories. Facilitated by Jordan Goldmeier, we have Oz du Soleil, Rick Grantham and our special guest Jon Peltier on the panel.
What are we waiting for?
1 – Jordan
Jordan shared had a bunch of stories to get things started. His first one was about testing a client product for which he had to come up with fake names. Having gotten bored, he started using names like ‘butt-face 1’ and ‘butt-face 2’. And, surprisingly, he ended up sending the project like that to the client. Needless to say, he realized he had to send an “updated version” in a few minutes to save some embarrassment.
The other two anecdotes are more related to client engagement then Excel. In one of them, he was flown to Florida by a client to deliver a presentation. While he was waiting on the client, he started doodling things on his presentation notes about his hatred for barbeque twisters while coming up with stupid names for his cousin. Then he took a bathroom break and, when he came back, the client personnel were reading through the exact same set of notes and going over his dumb jokes.
The last one is a short one. During a presentation, his Wi-Fi was on. And a large message popped up on the screen from his then-girlfriend, now-wife.
2 – Rick
Rick did not have an embarrassing story related to Excel. But he share one thing: imagine a boy with a perm, who break-dances and wears parachute pants in 1980s. Now imagine a whole group of 8th graders doing that. Well, that used to be Rick!
3 – Oz
Oz had two, only-slightly-embarrassing stories to share. In the first one, he created an amazing dashboard and pimped it out knowing that the client will love it. When he gave it to her, she said, “I can tell it’s smart, but I kinda hate it.”
The other happened around the time he started out freelancing. He met with this client and spent a good time getting to know the requirements. And when he got home, he started cranking it out. 80% through it, he called the client up to tell him that it could be done and what his fees will be. The client replied by saying that he just wanted to know if it was possible to do, he doesn’t need it done right now.
What’s next?
If you have an embarrassing story to share, do write to us in the comments section below.
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I asked the same question recently in some of the LinkedIn forums & got a TON of responses, which I put into a free eBook “58 Crazy Excel Stories (that are probably happening in your company right now)!”. Free download from https://accessanalytic.com.au/faq-items/58-crazy-excel-stories/?tax_term=cfos