Last week someone sent me a lovely email, describing a young woman’s career beginnings. They said I could share the story with you, but asked to remain anonymous.
Maybe your career began in a similar way.
- Did you start out with an Excel career in mind?
- Did you struggle at first, and did Excel help you move forward?
- Did you help someone else get ahead, by giving them a few Excel pointers?
The Story
Here’s the story from the email:
My daughter had a very rough first year of work after completing a marketing degree, basically having to act as a receptionist and assistant dogsbody to lots of people.
Then she landed a job at a small firm where she found they were doing things extremely manually. I introduced her to pivot tables, and with a bit of help, she has completely transformed their spreadsheets so they can do in minutes what took them days and weeks, without any errors.
The best part is that her new skills and spreadsheets have, for the first time, given her something she can call her own, and respect from her colleagues. She is fiercely proud of her work, and keen to learn more. What a transformation!
It’s hard to imagine that pivots could be girl power, but here they were.
Go pivots!
Did you know what a dogsbody was? I’d never heard that before, but Wikipedia explained that it’s someone who does grunt work.
It’s great to see that people are getting recognition for their Excel skills, and saving time, and reducing errors in their work.
Excel Resources
If you’re trying to learn more about Excel, but don’t have a free consultant at home, you’ll find lots of free tutorials here on this blog, on my pivot table blog, and on my Contextures website.
And for the latest Excel courses, Excel books and Excel tools, go to the Debra’s Excel Picks page, on my Contextures website
____________
I only became an ‘expert’ when I worked with people that could not even spell Excel, let alone use it !!
@Tony, that sounds like a lot of offices, around the world!