Furlough, and training

As I’m on furlough, I thought I would have a break from reading.  Yes – that does happen – I do things other than read.  So, as I have been “given” (alright – loaned) a laptop and Wi-Fi dongle, I’ve put my time to good use and completed a couple of courses.  One on time management (something that I have been working on *before* I was furloughed) and the other on basic Excel skills.

To be honest, I thought my Excel skills were OK…  But the course showed me things that I didn’t even know Excel could do…  Bit embarrassing to say the least.  

So, I decided to take the plunge and have another look at my Excel skills.  Turns out that there are some rather worrying gaps in my knowledge.  OK – I had the ability to get through the day to day work that I do, but I am getting to the stage that I do need to gain a better understanding of the things that the damned thing can do...  Namely the dreaded function VLOOKUP.

This has caused me more grey hair than enough, and despite colleagues being patient and trying to explain the principals behind this function, I *cannot* get my head around it.  So, I’m using my time to get some training, and hopefully get to grips with this damned function, as well as other bits of Excel that could be useful to me…  

It does help that the weather has been rotten (cold, rain, wind – typical UK spring day) so it means that there has been less temptation to go back to the garden and finish pruning the dogwood.  Not that I am trying to get out of that – far from it.  It’s just that I dislike getting cold and wet – especially when there is no need to.

So, hopefully this course will help me get my brain cell around the methodology of the dreaded VLOOKUP…  Then all I will have to do is put the theory into use – and hopefully discover that it makes my life easier when I am back in the office…

Back when my brain cell tells me that I have had enough (or I have gone cross eyed / bonkers trying to understand VLOOKUP….)

Karen

Write in dust all you say
Look for the answers you know you can trust
One day they might blow away