MY FUN DAY: When you’re a nerd like me, fun is a somewhat rare event. However, I did have a bit of fun this past week . . . . nerdy fun, as it were. You see, the wife of a former office mate from a past job had called up another guy in my office (who had also worked for that past employer of mine), wanting some help in making graphs from an Excel spreadsheet. The guy who took the call (Mr. Raj) decided to call me in on the case, so I picked up his cell phone and made my re-acquaintances with Valerie.
Ms. Valerie has a PhD in nursing and health care management, and recently took a job in the financial unit of a big health care system. This presented her with a bit of a challenge. She was used to managing field-level nursing operations, and not to fiscal controls and cost projections. Her new boss wanted her to turn out some actual-versus-target-expense graphs, despite her unfamiliarity with the intricacies of spreadsheets. And she had to turn them out fast. So she turned to Mr. Raj, who in turn turned to me . To turn a phrase. (OK, I’ll stop with the turning).
Anyway, there I was sitting at Raj’s desk, speaking to Valerie in Manhattan on Raj’s cell phone, trying to walk her thru the creation of a decent multi-line chart on Excel I opened up Excel on Raj’s computer, and had Valerie follow me as I created a graph. . It got pretty intense there for a while. Maybe even dramatic (she obviously was taking me very seriously, as though her job depended upon it). It kind of reminded me of those movie plots where the pilot of an airplane becomes unconscious and a passenger with little or no flying experience has to land the plane. “OK, now Valerie, do you see that handle next to the throttle lever? OK, now move it just a bit to the left. Is the plane banking and turning towards the left? Good. OK, put it back to the center. Now, take a look at the air speed indicator, which is . . . .”
Well all right, this isn’t exactly what I said (and I guess I just broke my promise about not turning anymore). But still, it was kind of fun helping someone get the hang of operating an unfamiliar technical system. She did finally get a fairly decent double-line chart together. And I felt pretty good about playing the part of the heroic air-traffic controller who landed an emergency flight through his cool and calm instructions. In my hyperactive, fun-loving imagination, anyway!