EXCEL rant - Nit picky boss

[bringthethunder]

So, I have a project whereby I am using Excel to calculate all Sales over a 18 month period, with some other intricate, fussy bits added in

[example: Add up total packets of crisps sold (its not crisps but don't want to be too specific as its a niche market we operate in)]

So, I've been working on this for 3 days, based on a 2 line email I received from my boss which offered very little info on what he really wanted. I was literally told "I want an 18 month breakdown of all sales, and total up all the crisps and all the customers".
I've had to go back to him umpteen times asking for further info on what he actually wants as some things just aren't countable! For example, I can count crisps, but I can't count how many people bought them as one customer could buy 1 packet, one could have bought 50!

Anyways, after 3 days I send him the completed project which was time consuming and frustrating due to the lack of info provided and having to employ some sort of psychic wizardry to estimate things. I was feeling quite pleased with how it was all presented and calculated. Sent it days before deadline.
But instead of even a basic "thanks" - he has come back to say that the "Crisps" column AutoSum function hasn't added all the way up the list 9making an incorrect total) and did I mean this or is it a mistake? stupid, passive aggressive question
OBVIOUSLY ITS A MISTAKE. JUST BLOODY DRAG THE AUTOSUM UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE. Why would he need to come and moan at me about one, tiny thing on a massive workbook, that literally takes him 1 second to correct?! I mean, I get that its my job and in an ideal world the mistake wouldn't have been there but I manage people also and I would never get at staff about such a thing.

So, my questions is: if you are a manger would you spend time writing out the email passive aggressively asking for the correction, waiting for it to be done and sent back, or would you just take 2 secs to fix the thing yourself and be chuffed that the work was done DAYS ahead of deadline?

Not trying to be a dick, but you didn't finish days ahead of schedule. You left a mistake, that you had time to check for and fix.

His email to you doesn't sound passive aggressive to me. You made a mistake and he asked you about, that that delivered the spreadsheet ahead of schedule isn't relevant. It's good that you got it done quickly but that doesn't mean you're somehow above being asked about a mistake. It also doesn't make your boss nit-picky or passive aggressive for asking you about it.

I don’t understand why he’d be impressed by a spreadsheet with a major error, that doesn’t actually give him the info he asked for?

You might want to look at your work ethic OP. And your management abilities, you need to let your staff know if they are making errors

I’m with the boss.

If a member of my team took three days to do something like this, and it had basic errors, I’d be very annoyed.

I would say thank you, but I would also always check that the spreadsheet was correct.

I would never just correct somebody else's work book because that is the way that errors creep in. If he didn't care whether the work was accurate, there was no point asking you to do it in the first place.

As the spreadsheet has "other intricate, fussy bits" he probably didn't want to correct it himself as, for all he know, that might mess up the formulae in the other bits.

I suspect there is a bigger back story here but on the facts that you've presented, you sent him a file with an error, he spotted it and came back to you to check and correct it. Nothing wrong with that.

Your manager should have responded when you asked for more info, but equally if you made a mistake it’s fair enough to pull you up on it, especially if you were asked to calculate the sales of crisps and essentially got it wrong. It’s shit being pulled up on something like that but attention to detail is important. He could have thanked you for your time/effort though I guess.

If you are trusted to analyse and provide data it's important the information you provide is correct, you should have spent the extra time you had validating your report.

If he didn't tell you then you wouldn't know you made a mistake, would you rather be oblivious that your were providing wrong information and weren't trusted to provide accurate data, that others had to double check/work out where you went wrong.

You made a mistake, he is giving you the opportunity to fix/learn from it. It's not nice to hear when you've messed up but you needed to know so you can work out how to avoid the same cockup again.

While I think your boss could have at least thanked you for your effort, I totally support him raising the error with you.

You need to be more careful with your work, and not get miffed when your mistakes are pointed out.

Em that’s not one tiny thing that is basically the main thing he asked for and you didn’t check it was done properly.

I’d be thoroughly unimpressed if one of my team did that then had this type of attitude to it. He’s actually been quite pleasant about it, pointing it out and giving you a chance to change it, and to learn from it about attention to detail rather than giving you a bollocking for it.

And it isn’t an excel problem, this is an operator problem.

A thank you wouldn’t have gone wrong mind you.

I'm with your boss too. No point in sending the spreadsheet early if it doesn't work.

Likewise. I would query it. I'm funny about people messing with my spreadsheets so I don't mess around with other people's without asking first. And I would want to know how deliberate this was. If there was a reason behind it I would trust the rest of the spreadsheet. If there was no reason but it was a mistake I would be wondering about the quality of work from someone who sent things early with basic errors in them.

Why should he thank you for a job done with mistakes? Particularly if it was sent days before the deadline.

Did you apologise?

a pivot table will give you items per customer. you just need your data laid out, with unique identifiers. lovely little pivot table, f4 a graph out of it, and ride your bonus all the way to Christmas.

I think your boss was right to highlight it.

You will likely feel bad about it but you need to understand that your accuracy or lack of, will create confidence or lack of, in your work.

The omission is easily done, especially if it has taken 3 days to collate. Lesson learned is to check each calculation.

It's not a failure, it's an opportunity to learn and improve.

Getting back to your OP, don't you have a record of each sale and aren't you able to pull out how many crisps were sold each time (therefore per customer)?

I work with Excel a lot and I've made mistakes and have had to also point them out to other people. The easiest way of doing this without sounding too patronising is to ask "Did you mean to do this?". Yes he could correct it, but if you're not aware of it, it could mean mistakes again in the future.

BUT, you are also entitled to point his mistakes out to him and he should be more decisive as to what he wants, whether it is individual sales or transactions. It makes a big difference in the numbers. I have these issues with people wanting numbers from me, but can't be specific about what they want. They may as well just ask you to "excel some crisps please" as they aren't really sure what the question is themselves.

Total units sold was one of the main points he'd asked for, so if he'd also not checked it properly it could have had negative ramifications depending on the reason for asking for the data.

Instead of trying to cover all angles I'd have literally given what he asked for - no worrying about how many units were bought by each customer, if they bought other things too, etc. If he wanted more involved information he could then get back to you.

I think you were over analytical and then didn't double check one of the most crucial aspects. Maybe keep it simple next time.

I would have pointed out the error so that for future when you add to it or use the data for other things it was correct. However I wouldn’t have been a passive aggressive twat about it.
Lack of attention to detail can be frustrating, particularly if he find it’s a consistent issue, not just from you but maybe also from others.
Don’t let it get to you. Live and learn.

I think it was the most basic of errors. A totals sheet with the wrong totals.

It was wrong

By pointing it out, I bet you will triple check before sending something to him in the future.

Instead of trying to cover all angles I'd have literally given what he asked for

I agree. Always start with the actual questions asked and with the basic, then you can always refine the analysis, or they can ask more defined questions.

But, crucially, get the most basic answers right. Check and double check before sending out work done.

I'd just fix it. My Excel skills are pretty OK: I could do that

I'm with your boss. What if he hadn't checked and had just trusted the data? At a busier time he might have. He needs to know he can rely on you to give accurate information.

Of course he needed to tell you, otherwise you have a wrong spreadsheet on your computer, that you might use later.

The passive aggressive part is that he hasn't asked you to double check the rest, which he should have, and you should really do (and have done before you sent).

How will you stop making mistakes unless you're told about them, and if it picked up the wrong cells then the formula was wrong.

And depending on your professional relationship, it might not be his job to check.

Appologise, correct, check, and don't do it again.

(I have someone at work who keeps doing something similar, and it takes me twice as long to do my job because I end up doing his too - don't be that person)

Sorry, OP, but it's one of my pet hates when people don't do the "sums" correctly in a spreadsheet. If I find an error like that, it immediately makes me doubt everything else, so cue a lot of time checking other calculations and putting in cross-checks and sanity checks.

You need to get used to building in cross-checks so that inbuilt errors can be identified automatically.