just want to say thanks to forum users

[wonderdunder]

Hello,

I wanna say that this site is a godsend. I've been roped in by my employer to do some spreadsheets (apparently, being able to do conditional formatting and a lookups makes me the office expert).

Got to say what I know about excel could be written on a postage stamp with plenty of room to spare, but I'm (very!) slowly learning.

I wouldn't be able to do anything though without the help of this site and those who contribute to it. And it's better and more efficient than using my employer's IT can't help desk.

Well done all and thanks again.

[Domski]

And it's better and more efficient than using my employer's IT can't help desk.

Caller - "I'd like to know how to create a formula in Excel."
Helpdesk - "Have you tried powering off and on again?"

Good you've found the place helpful. There's some very talented folk about so you should learn a lot if you want to. I know I do

Dom

[ChemistB]

I like when I call the help desk and I hear them flipping through the pages of either their manual or their pre-determined list of questions to ask. That's when I know I'm in trouble.

[zbor]

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

[Andrew-R]

I worked on the IT helpdesk of a major corporation for 4 years, so I feel I should stand up for the IT support guys. While I admit that there were problems where we were hopelessly out of our depth we also had to deal with people who set their colour schemes to black-on-black and then complained that their monitors weren't working properly, or who set the mouse double-click speed to the fastest possible and then realised that they couldn't double-click fast enough to open any applications ... including the one to set the mouse click speed back.

One manager sent a very large document to print from his lap-top and then closed it and unplugged the parallel cable before Word had finished spooling it. Apparently he was running late for his flight and didn't have time to restart his computer and print it again, but he did find 10 minutes spare to yell at me because I couldn't "just make it print". He went on to become a high profile MP.

[Domski]

I do sympathise with their plight (a bit). I pretty much am the IT helpdesk for my department and despair at some of the 'problems' people come to me with.

Dom

[Mordred]

The IT helpdesk where I work is pretty good when it comes to hardware and software issues but the helpdesk does not have a programmer. If I didn't have this site, I'd probably still be working on my first project...Well, maybe not, but my code would look like garbage and my projects would take forever to run.

[romperstomper]

I'd like to echo the general sentiments - I've learned a huge amount from forums; partly from other people's answers, and partly from their questions. Figuring out ways to do things I wouldn't have dreamed of doing (or needed to do) in my own work can make life very interesting!

[martindwilson]

don't start me on it help desks
me: hi i cannot access the Intranet and so neither can any of the 15 colleagues in my office
help desk: can you get the home page
me:nope no one can
helpdesk: please restart your pc and try again
me:????????? ok if you insist iv'e nothing better to do anyway
helpdesk: 2.3 nano seconds later "is it ok now?"
me: the darling pc is still rebooting
helpdesk:2 seconds later "how about now?"
me: look i'll tell you when it's up
me. ok rebooted ok still no luck
helpdesk:go to tools options and clear your cookies......
me:ok ;nope still cannot connect neither can anyone else
helpdesk:what is the barcode of your pc
me:er why do you need that?
helpdesk:we will send an engineer within 24 hrs to look at the pc it may need replacing
me:er what about the others
helpdesk:no only you, they will have to report theirs individually
me: are you seriously telling me that all 15 have broken down at the same time
helpdesk:i dont know about them only you
me:goodbye ,i give up

[teylyn]

Figuring out ways to do things I wouldn't have dreamed of doing (or needed to do) in my own work

Seconded! I glean these gems of knowledge and store them away. Then, every once in a while I can make someone's day in my office and turn a day's worth of manual work into a few clicks.

Other times, though, I can turn a few mouse clicks into a few day's worth of figuring out a VBA solution to do the same thing. But then, that is quite in line with the famous saying "why spend 5 minutes to do something manually, if you can spend 5 hours writing the code to do it?" <or some such> If someone has the original quote, please post it here, quoting the source I can't quite remember. (Ken Puls? Mike Alexander? someone along these lines, anyway)

Edit: spelling of names corrected, as per post #15.

[romperstomper]

Is this the one you were thinking of:
"Why spend two hours doing something by hand when you can spend a week perfecting code to do the same thing."

[teylyn]

Yes, that's the one. Can the author please stand up?

[romperstomper]

That used to be my sig at MrE - I don't think I've seen it anywhere else, but you may have.

[teylyn]

I love your signatures, R. That on certainly stuck in my head well enough for me to remember that it originated from an MVP. Shame I did not remember the correct one!

Google has not seen it anywhere else, either, so MrE must be where I saw it.

[romperstomper]

Just FYI, it's Ken Puls, not Pulse.

[teylyn]

Go, show the spelling afficionado the ropes. Fingers working on automatic. I'll correct it.