confused about my new job

[fuddle]

I am a bank nurse and have been for nine years. I have just taken on a role as project support. I was told I did not need project management experience. It is also bank work so did not have a rigorous interview. I was asked what my IT skills were like. I had just signed up to an office 2010 course but was told Admin would type things up. It turns out the job involves alot of IT someone is coming to help me on Monday but this may only be for an hour. The PA of my manager is not doing very well, ie keeps sending out wrong times for meetings, inaccurate reports. So that is why my boss needed extra help. Someone with a clinical back ground but there are so many doctors and nurses on the project that I fail to understand why I am needed. The environment is totally alien to me. I am not however too stressed out as I don't see how I can possibly work spread sheets etc if I have not had training. My boss is nice and has been through loads with me but I feel I am literally getting paid for nothing! I have done the obvious such as talk to my boss and I appreciate the fact that this is a great opportunity I am wondering if anyone can shed light on my situation ??

[whereiseveryone]

Well, I've never had any training on Excel but I'm pretty hot on it. I just taught myself, looked at what other people were doing, looked up stuff online.

You can teach yourself anything if you're keen enough.

[breatheslowly]

I think that a lot of people learn Excel as they use it. Formal training can be a bit of a waste as you forget things if you don't use them. The way I learnt Excel was by looking at existing spreadsheets and how they work and also searching the help function if I didn't know how to do something (it can pretty much do anything you can think of). Word and Outlook are the same.

Are these the only forms of IT you need to be able to use?

Do you actually know what you are meant to be doing?

[atmywitsend13]

I used youtube/google for help when I am stuck.

Were you ever provided with a job spec? Might be worth asking for one x

[flowery]

"I don't see how I can possibly work spread sheets etc if I have not had training."

If it's just Excel rather than some more complicated bespoke internal software or something, you shouldn't need training. I've never had any excel training and use spreadsheets all the time.

What steps have you taken so far to address this gap in your knowledge? There are bags of online tutorials as others have said. I'd also be inclined to find someone who knows about excel to give you a basic overview. Either a friendly administrator at work, or a friend/family member.

[LIZS]

Ask the PA, admin or your boss to go over how you are expected to use these spreadsheets. You aren't being asked to design anything new, just input the relevant data to produce a report. As long as you have basic keyboard skills and a familiarity with the excel spreadsheets it will be fine once you have done it a couple of times. Presumably you could till go on an Office course or do an ECDL ?

[fuddle]

Thanks very much for your comments. I am going to sign up for ECDL. things have got alot better and seem to be making progress.