Rooster's Revenge

My day is like a soap opera: one big meaningless drama that never seems to end.

Let’s take one trivial example. I am tasked with creating an automated calculation in Excel that computes the number of days waiting for a job to get reviewed. The existing table had the start and end dates that are manually typed by the user.

Simple enough.

Like I always say, anything worth doing is worth over doing. How can I over do something like this?

How about showing a blank cell if there is no start date? Clean.

How about automatically calculating the days waiting if there is a start date but no end date yet? Cool.

Hey, why not subtract weekends and paid holidays? Sweet.

Let’s color code the cells so that if the response is within 1 day, it is green. In 2 days, it goes to yellow. When we hit 3 or more days, we go red. Nice.

And take it one step further. If what is typed in the cell is not a date, then show a blank cell instead of an error message. Damn.

The equation is simple enough. It is:

=IF(ISBLANK(A4),”",IF(ISBLANK(B4),NETWORKDAYS(A4,TODAY(),Holiday)-1,IF(ISTEXT(A4),”",IF(ISERROR(A4),”",(NETWORKDAYS(A4,B4,Holiday)-1)))))

The A4 is the date out cell, B4 is the date in cell, and Holiday pulls from a list of dates. Click here to download an example (is an 2007 Excel file).

So, where does the drama start? I work with a guy that told me straight up that he does not want me working with him and all that. It could be anyone in the seat. He is just insecure. I don’t like dealing with insecure, irrational people. But, that is part of the game.

Well, my new buddy proudly announces today that he does not use the date in /out thing anymore since I added the calculation to it.

Not that I really give two shits, but it does make the “trying to get along” thing difficult. Perplexing to me, it is, when intelligent people behave like children.

Scratch that. My 8 year old was more respectful and mature when he was 2.

I digress.

Bottom line is I still have alot of game left in me. I may not be as fast or sharp as I was 20 years ago, but I have more experience than most in their 60s.

My goal is simple: I want to be on a championship caliber team. Plain and simple.

I have the skills, knowledge, and experience to take any die group to the highest levels. But, somehow, I keep finding myself in these situations where politics and psychology seem to take precedence over profit and prosperity.

I totally get why Brett Favre changes his mind about playing football about as much as I change mine about being in this business. It is tough getting older.

I am certainly not getting any younger. I may have mellowed some, but my tolerance for babies and bullshit still hovers around zero.