Great [Excel] Skills

Dear techies and technically-challenged,

There was a cult-classic film some years back about a dorky, lanky, awkward teen who was talented only in drawing animals and warriors and stuff. He lacked good skills, 'you know, like nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills.' And it is very apparent that 'girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.' No, Napoleon Dynamite wasn't in the Redbox, and I hadn't started Netflix yet. I have to thank IMDB for supplying me with the memorable quotes.

I, like Napoleon, do not possess nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, nor computer hacking skills. Though I do pretty much excel in everything else [and this isn't a gross exaggeration], which includes Excel. That is Microsoft Excel.

I have come to understand the term 'end-user' as a somewhat derogatory term after having introduced one of the old-timey pharmacists to Microsoft Excel. In this electronic age, there is very little reason to hand-type in calculations, especially those that have to be done repetitively. Case in point? Balancing a checkbook by hand instead of using a spreadsheet. Quicken was designed for idiot end-users (I hope none of my friends are Quicken users--they're wasting their money); Quicken is simply a bunch of glorified spreadsheets designed for people who can't make their own spreadsheets.

I don't pretend to be an amazing techie (unlike the stereotypical Asian male, I don't have Photoshop skills, gamer skills, car mod skills, or godly electronic skills), but I do well enough for myself to understand how Excel, Powerpoint and Word work. I may not know all the features and macros, but I can whip out a spreadsheet to illustrate the federal income tax's marginal tax rate (the tax on the last dollar you make). After learning a few lessons in the features of a spreadsheet and learning how to tell the computer what you want it to do, the computer will do it for you, faster and more accurate than you would have been able to do it yourself.

Side note: In my opinion, knowing how to balance your checkbook and do your taxes is much much more important than hacking a computer to output an additional 0.5 ghz out of a microchip to increase World of Warcraft's FPS (frames per second) by 3.

All it really takes is a Google search (something like 'excel basics' or 'excel tutorial' will get you this really good tutorial, which unfortunately does not sell fake pharmaceuticals) and a couple of hours. Considering you probably have a copy of Excel bundled with your Microsoft Office suite, the spreadsheeet program is pretty much free to you. If not, you can actually download a fully functional office suite that's very similar to Microsoft Office 2003 called OpenOffice (I'm actually using OpenOffice's Writer application right now) that's entirely free. It costs you the time it takes to download and install. And OpenOffice is pretty much fully compatible with Office 2003 for most of the basic functions; there's no real need to shell out $200+ for the trendy makeover design of Office 2007. And people won't email you back constantly saying they can't open your file because it is a .docx instead of a .doc file.

Do yourself a favor. If you've never spreadsheeted in your life, go read up on the tutorial. Then spend half an hour creating a spreadsheet to balance your checkbook for the last month. I promise that if you keep up with it, you can better manage your finances and feel good that you learned an important skill that will never become outdated. Photoshop skills (chunky jewelry) come and go, but spreadsheet skills (diamonds) are forever. Just ask the Lotus 1-2-3 users of the 1980s.

Excel made my wildest dreams come true. Of course that isn't saying much, since one of them was calculating what percentage of my paycheck to contribute to my 401(k).