DH has been using a calculator to add things recorded in Excel

[RokaandRoll]

AIBU to think this is absolutely astonishing?

I found out because we were doing a new budget spreadsheet and he read out what we spend on different things each month while I recorded each item in Excel. He then asked me to read the amounts back to him so he could add them up. I was like WHAT??? I'll just add a formula in Excel. He said "really, you can do that?" I asked him what he thought Excel was for, and he said he didn't know as no one had taught him.

Have you ever found out someone was doing something in a completely bizarre and illogical way on a similar level as this? DH is in his 50s and is a quite intelligent person (or so I thought). He has used Excel in his job although obviously not extensively. AIBU to be completely shocked?

^You are computer literate though @karriecreamer.
I don't think you have any idea that someone who isn't computer literate just wouldn't know these things intuitively. And if they really aren't computer literate they might not knw how to use google effectively.^

Which is why there should be a concerted effort to improve computer literacy in the UK. I can remember when mobile phones were first cheap enough and small enough to have become something most people could have if they wanted to. My husband and I saw no reason to have them at first, but before long it became clear that so many other people did have them that it was becoming inconvenient not to have one. Other people, including colleagues, expected to be able to contact us that way. And then smartphones came along and the phone became incredibly useful in far more ways than just being able to send and receive calls and texts. Nowadays someone who doesn't have a mobile, especially a smartphone, is quite isolated in many ways.

I think we're in a similar position with computer literacy. Most people have access to the internet and some form of computer, even if they haven't grasped that a smartphone can be so described. But many don't know how to make best use of these incredibly powerful devices, so waste enormous amounts of time and don't make the most efficient use of them. As I said in a post on this thread yesterday, this is something that could be done relatively simply to improve UK productivity.

I think if you have done learning from books, growing up, it’s not easy to switch to teaching yourself online. The Idiots guide books - Word, Excel - were great - not sure if they’re available now.
Being ‘shown’ how to use online stuff with someone click, click, clicking is infuriating as the pointer is too small and fast to follow. And for me memorising which arrow, slider, menu they clicked on is impossible.

I agree with you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.
DD is 23 and wasn't taught excel at school. She didn't choose IT/computing as a GCSE option. IMO it should be compulsory as it is far more relevant to today than memorising a piece of Shakespeare.

She familiarised herself with Word as she used it for her geography NEA at A level and used it a lot for her degree. She didn't need excel until her final year dissertation.

I agree with a PP that unless you use a programme a lot you forget the knowledge.

So I did computer studies in the 80s. DD started at secondary school in 2008. She DIDN’T have computing lessons. Her mandatory subjects were maths, modern foreign language, English and triple science. I showed her basic excel use for budgeting when she went to uni. DS is five years younger. IT was a something he could OPT for in year 9.

@housethatbuiltme computer science/ICT/whatever it is called now wasn't mandatory at DD's secondary school (2011 start).

Remember too that IT GCSE changed (thanks again idiot Gove) to Computer Science, where instead of using software, students now have to program it. I sat through an EPQ presentation a couple of weeks ago where an 18 year old CS student talked me through an app he had developed. In school, we use Python. But the app needed Java so he had to teach himself how to do all the basic stuff first. Absolutely fascinating if a bit over my head. But in a secondary school now, ours don't seem to be taught to use Word or Excel. It's all programming.

In aforementioned EPQ, we teach the students to use the referencing tool in Word. Given that they are y12 when they start, most of them are blown away by this, but it stands them in great stead when they start uni.

Spot on!
Its also about understanding the terminology although I suppose if someone was that invested they’d Google or get a book out.
I have tried in vain to work out how to cut and paste on MN but just can’t…….where is all the glue!

@Itsonlymashadow

Computer basics, again in my experience, is taught in schools.

It isn't in all at all. My son was at secondary between 2013 and 2020 and never had a single IT/Computer lesson. It wasn't on their curriculum at all. They were told they could draft essays in Word, or do Power Point presentations, but they were never taught how to - it was all a matter of teach yourself. If you couldn't/didn't then you just wrote your essays on pen and paper and did presentations by making your own hand made posters etc.

"In the late 1990s and early 2000s my employer (a university) provided pretty good face to face training on this kind of thing, but then phased it out."

Yes, they probable stopped when they found that a significant number of people could already use those programmes so then they just started only employing those people. You're probably right that training should be offered again.

As for control C and control V, I now use a programme that doesn't recognise them so am having to un-train myself out of using them.

I'm another one who discovered format painter a few years ago and have since found colleagues who didn't know about it either.

I wouldn't expect people who've never worked in an office to know this.
Just like I don't know about the tools used in construction or whatever.

I don't 'get' astronomy. My brain just doesn't like it an no amount of lessons will make me learn it properly. We have brains that work differently.

A bloke in my office who couldn’t work out how to use a clipboard. He was holding it face down and complaining that it was impossible to get the paper under the clip. 🤦‍♀️

In another office I worked in, there was apparently a woman who kept throwing away staplers because “they stop working after a while”. She didn’t know that you had to refill them.

To be fair, in many places I've worked, Excel is used mainly for lists for names and addresses, mail merges, etc. with hardly any need for formulas so you could be forgiven it's just a simple data base-type tool.

King Rollo taught me! I could finally do it then.

I still don’t know how to do bows by the other method, that apparently makes them look like perfect little scissors. But never mind.

"But they usually get some training when in an office."

Which offices give Excel training? You're usually expected to know it before you start, unless a much older person in a senior role.

Can you speak Japanese, perform brain surgery, fix a car engine, build a bridge...... No? Oh well perhaps you fall into your not very intelligent grading system. What I find staggering is that any couple sit fucking about recording spending on an Excel spreadsheet. Have more fun FFS.

"Remember too that IT GCSE changed (thanks again idiot Gove) to Computer Science, where instead of using software, students now have to program it."

It was computer science back in my time as well. To be fair, learning Excel etc. isn't really IT it's vocational training in office automation. I think there's a good argument that schools should be teaching more how computers work than how to use a particular programme.

Yes I mentioned that ds, who is currently in secondary, does far more than when my oldest (20) did.

and I also said it was my experience. There seems to have been a chunk of time where it wasn’t. At least in schools my kids friends and friends kids go to it. Where when dd was at school no one seemed to do it.

i think, if it’s not taught in all schools, it absolutely should be. I went to secondary in the 90s. Despite having an IT lesson a week, I had to figure out Microsoft office on my own. But again, even if it’s taught in schools, if you don’t use it in a long time it can be hard to get back to where you are

Lots of places will put you on excel courses. In almost 25 years working all my employers have. Either in house or external. It’s a real shame so many don’t.

From time to time though, yes? Not when you first start the job as part of your induction?

No we run them all the time. I have a temp just started in one team and we put her on the first course in her second week. Her supervisor is training her in the exact excel functions that she needs to know and know well as part of the induction. Depends on when you start.

The woman who had my job before me, had her courses set up for her when she started in the first week. I didn’t as I was further along and wanted to know what I needed for the job. As it’s stands I haven’t done any in 4 years but did do Power BI.

I worked at one of the big supermarkets HO and again they would schedule courses as soon as you signed your contract so you could do one your first week if it fell like that.

Wow. I've never had something like that.
Do you need quite an advanced level of Excel for your job?
For mine, you can get by on quite basic, although advanced can be useful sometimes.

Yes, I agree, passage of time means you forget things, but you wouldn't forget that you could actually add things up in Excel - you may forget how to do it, but you'd not forget that you could.

Same with Word, you'd remember that there was a way of changing the text size, colour, centring a heading, but maybe not exactly how.

You don't suddenly forget the fundamentals, however long it has been you've used it. You forget the detail as to how to do it, and the actual keystrokes etc and location of options in the headings have probably changed anyway.

I had a couple of years out of accountancy practice when I didn't use the highly specialised accounts and tax preparation software. After the two years, I got a job in a similar firm using the same software I'd used extensively for a decade beforehand. I hadn't a clue at first, but it all came flooding back within a few hours, but the thing was I knew that it "could" do certain things, it was the detail of which buttons to press which I'd forgotten and actually getting hands on, very quickly reminded me.

No, but then very few people need to be able to do this. But most people can boil an egg, use a screwdriver or hammer, make a cup of tea or operate a washing machine - eveyday tasks, probably none of which they were taught to do at school.

As someone who has been using spreadsheets since the days of Lotus 1-2-3, I have been surprised that so many people have commented that they don't know how they work and don't see the benefit. I don't believe that this reflects in any way on anyone's intelligence - rather, it has made me realise that something that I have taken for granted (that most people could either use a spreadsheet for fairly simple tasks, or could quickly learn) is not actually the case.

In an earlier post, I described my experience in a large multi-million pound company where few of the staff had been trained in the absolute basics of excel, with the result that their reports were hopelessly inaccurate. As business decisions were being made on the basis of these reports, this was having a huge negative impact on the business. The remedy was to find out exactly what skills gaps the staff had, and then to train them accordingly. I'm surprised to read on this thread that there are still companies that do not train their staff in the basics. A joinery company would (hopefully) not employ a carpenter who could not competently use a saw, hammer, chisel, tape measure etc. so why would a company not train their staff in excel, word, outlook and other office applications if their job required this?

That’s a really difficult question. I don’t find it advanced. But, going back to my earlier point, I understand how excel ‘thinks’. So I can pretty much work out what I need between my experience and Google.

But for a lot of people it would be quite advanced. I have no idea where the it would fall in courses. Definitely intermediate and some advanced. I said I haven’t really done any courses. Most of my staff have done intermediate or advanced are a bit ‘meh’ about them. Some is applicable and helps. But most is things they may not use and then forget. I do think regular on the job use and development is the best way to boost excel skills. But it’s just my experience.

I can get excel to do things that my data engineers didn’t know it could do. Because they use other tools to achieve the same. Tbh, they might achieve it quicker. And I learn from them on all the time too. I figured them out in excel as I am so familiar with it.