Welcome to the Circus | Chapter 3: The Spreadsheet Whisperer
The lift doors parted, and I was greeted by a chorus of coughs, sneezes, and sniffles. It sounded like a plague had descended upon the 30th floor. As I cautiously stepped out, the usually bustling office seemed subdued, a cacophony of illness echoing through the normally vibrant space.
Kelly, perched behind the reception desk, was a vision in surgical blue. A mask covered her nose and mouth, a straw poking out from beneath it as she sipped on a steaming cup of green tea. She was deep in conversation, her voice muffled by the mask as she animatedly discussed the merits of various bridesmaid dress designs.
Laura, the brunette from accounting, floated past like a ghost, a tissue clutched in her hand as she dabbed at her nose. Her normally crisp attire was rumpled, and her eyes held a weary resignation.
Sarah emerged from her office, her usually immaculate appearance slightly dishevelled. She sneezed into her elbow, muttering darkly, “Honestly, you’d think these people were trying to kill me with their germs.”
Lily’s brow was furrowed, her lips pressed into a tight line. Even her normally perfectly coiffed hair seemed to wilt under the weight of stress. I approached her desk hesitantly, unsure of how she would react.
“Lily?” I began, keeping my voice low. “Is everything alright?”
At that moment, her phone jangled to life. She answered with a curt “Yes?” and listened for a few seconds, her face growing paler by the moment.
“Another one?” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Alright, alright. Rest up and get well soon.”
She hung up the phone with a frustrated sigh. “That’s the fourth person who’s called in sick today,” she muttered, more to herself than to me. “Half my team is out with the flu, and we’re swamped with work.”
I could see the panic rising in her eyes, a rare crack in her usually stoic facade. Without hesitation, I offered, “Lily, would it be helpful if I pitched in? I’m happy to help with anything I can.”
She looked at me, surprise momentarily replacing the stress in her eyes. “You… you would?” she stammered, her voice barely a whisper.
Lily, with a hesitant nod, directed me to a shared folder brimming with files titled “Monthly Sales Report,” “Client Billing Summary,” and other ominous-sounding reports. She handed me a stack of printed instructions, their pages filled with intricate workflows and complex calculations.
As I headed back to my desk, sandwich crumbs trailing behind her, Kelly intercepted me with a mouthful of tuna salad. “Hey, Dennis,” she mumbled through a bite, “what did the Wicked Witch of the West want?”
I chuckled at her nickname for Lily. “Just needed a hand with some reports. Half her team’s out sick.”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “You’re helping her?” she asked, a mix of surprise and admiration in her voice. “Wow, you’re braver than I thought.”
Before I could respond, her attention was caught by a flash of red across the room. “Oh my god, Laura!” she squealed, abandoning her sandwich on her desk and rushing towards the accounting department. “Did you see the red carpet at Cannes? Those dresses were to die for!”
I shook my head, a smile tugging at my lips as I watched Kelly’s enthusiastic exchange with Laura. It was hard not to be charmed by her infectious energy, even amidst the chaos of a flu-ridden office.
As I turned back to my desk, Kelly called out, “Good luck with the dragon lady, Dennis!” Her words were followed by a burst of giggles as she disappeared into the accounting department.
I dove into the documents, my eyes scanning the dense paragraphs and endless rows of numbers. As I worked through the first report, a familiar feeling of frustration began to bubble within me. The process was convoluted, relying on manual data entry and outdated formulas. It was a time-consuming and error-prone system, a relic of a bygone era.
I couldn’t help but think of the hours wasted on repetitive tasks that could be easily automated. I envisioned pivot tables slicing and dicing data with surgical precision, formulas dynamically updating calculations, and reports generating themselves with the click of a button.
Without hesitation, I opened Excel and began to experiment. I imported the raw data, created pivot tables, and crafted formulas that would automate the calculations. Soon, the once-arduous reports were generating themselves, their numbers neatly aligned and their insights readily apparent.
As I ran the automated reports, I noticed a pattern that made me pause. Each member of Lily’s team was downloading the same massive dataset, and then painstakingly filtering it for their specific channels before creating their individual reports. It was a time-consuming and inefficient process, involving countless hours of copying, pasting, and potential for human error.
I made my way over to Kevin’s desk, where he was engrossed in a Reddit thread, his headphones muffling the office chatter.
He jumped slightly as I approached, his eyes widening in surprise. “Dennis? Everything alright?”
“Kevin, I have a favour to ask,” I began, my voice buzzing with excitement. “Could you build me a data cube for the channel sales data?”
Just then, Sarah strolled by, a knowing smirk playing on her lips. “Well, well,” she drawled, “looks like the analyst and the tech wizard are cooking up something interesting. What are you two scheming?”
Kevin’s eyes lit up, his fingers flying across his keyboard as he launched into a technical explanation. “An OLAP cube,” he began, “is a multidimensional array of data that allows for complex analytical querying…”
Sarah’s eyes glazed over, a feigned yawn escaping her lips. “In English, please, Kevin,” she drawled, a playful smile on her face. “My brain isn’t wired for tech jargon this early in the morning.”
I stepped in, eager to bridge the gap between Kevin’s technical expertise and Sarah’s need for a simpler explanation. “Imagine,” I began, “that instead of having to buy groceries, chop them, and prepare each ingredient from scratch, you had a service that delivered everything prepped and ready to cook. All you’d have to do is throw it in the pan and heat it up.”
Sarah’s eyes widened in understanding. “Okay, I’m following,” she said, nodding encouragingly.
I continued, “That’s essentially what a cube or data cube does for data. It pre-processes and organises the information, making it much easier and faster to analyse and report on. In Lily’s team’s case, they’re spending hours each day manually filtering and aggregating data, when they could simply access it directly from a pre-built OLAP cube.”
Sarah’s eyebrows shot up. “So, you’re saying they’re essentially reinventing the wheel every time they run a report?”
I nodded. “Exactly. It’s like baking a cake from scratch every day when you could just buy one from the bakery.”
Sarah let out a low whistle. “That’s insane. No wonder they’re always so stressed.” She turned to Kevin, a glint of determination in her eyes. “Alright, Kevin, let’s make this happen. How soon can you build this magical cube of yours?”
Kevin and I huddled over his monitor, the glow of the screen illuminating our faces. “So, there are three existing tables with the processed data?” I confirmed.
“Correct,” Kevin nodded, his fingers dancing across the keyboard. “Essentially, you need three queries combined into a single cube, embedded directly into Excel for easy access.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s a straightforward job, really.”
Kevin began navigating through the server directories, his eyes scanning the file names.
Sarah, who had been observing our exchange, leaned closer, her curiosity piqued. “What are you looking for, Kevin?” she asked.
Before Kevin could answer, she waved a dismissive hand. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. It’s probably some sort of IT voodoo.”
Kevin suddenly straightened up, a triumphant grin spreading across his face. “Aha! Found it!” He turned to a nearby cubicle and called out, “Hey, Steve! Can you create a data cube for me? I’ll ping you with the details.”
A muffled “Sure thing, boss” came from Steve’s direction.
Within seconds, a Teams message notification popped up on Kevin’s screen. “Done,” he announced, turning back to me. “Should be ready in about 30 minutes.”
Sarah looked at me expectantly. “What’s next on the agenda, Dennis?”
“I’ll wait for the cube to be ready,” I explained, “and then I’ll start compiling the reports.”
Sarah nodded, a hint of admiration in her eyes. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said, turning to walk away. “But seriously, you two,” she muttered over her shoulder, “IT and paganism are basically the same thing. It’s all chanting and sacrificing chickens to the data gods.”
Around 10:30 am, the caffeine cravings kicked in. I made my way to the kitchen, drawn by the promise of a steaming cup of coffee. Kelly was already there, perched on a high stool, a glazed donut in hand.
“Dennis!” she chirped, her eyes sparkling with delight. “You’ve got to try this donut. It’s got this special jam inside, made from berries that only grow in this tiny village in Colombia. It’s, like, life-changing.”
I chuckled at her infectious enthusiasm, shaking my head. “Life-changing jam, huh? I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Seriously, you have to try it,” she insisted, holding out the donut. “It’s the bomb dot com.”
I politely declined, opting instead for my usual tall latte with no sugar.
“So,” Kelly asked, leaning forward with a mischievous grin, “how’s the reporting going for Lily the Terrible?”
“Terrible?” I raised an eyebrow, amused by her nickname for our esteemed Head of Operations. “Actually, I’ve already finished all the weekly reports.”
A deep voice boomed from behind me, filled with disbelief. “Finished the weekly reporting?”
I turned to see a man with a receding hairline and a bushy moustache staring at me, his mouth agape. He glanced at his watch, then back at me. “How is that even possible? It’s not even lunchtime yet!”
“Dennis,” Kelly chimed in, her voice a mix of pride and amusement, “meet Tony Brown, Lily’s right-hand man.”
Tony and a few other members of Lily’s team gathered around, their curiosity piqued. I spent the next hour showing them the Excel tricks I’d used, explaining how pivot tables could transform their data into meaningful insights and how formulas could automate repetitive calculations. Their faces lit up with understanding as they realised the power of these tools.
Have a look at this,” I said, gathering the team around my computer screen. “You’ve all been downloading the raw data, manually filtering it for your specific channels, and then spending hours copying and pasting the results into your reports, right?”
They nodded, their faces etched with a mixture of exhaustion and curiosity.
“Well,” I continued, “what if I told you there’s a much easier way? A way that could save you hours of work each day?”
I opened the newly created Data cube, its interface a stark contrast to the messy spreadsheets they were used to. I showed them how to select their desired channel, apply a few filters, and voila — the data they needed was neatly organised and ready to be copied into their reports.
“It’s like magic!” one of the team members exclaimed, her eyes wide with wonder.
“It’s not magic,” I chuckled. “It’s just a different way of working with data. And with a little bit of development from Kevin and his team, we could automate this entire process. The reports could be generated and sent directly to the client each morning, without anyone having to lift a finger.”
“Why didn’t anyone think of this before?” one of the team members muttered, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Because,” Derek chimed in, a hint of sheepishness in his voice, “we’ve always done it this way. It’s how we were trained.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes, a fresh perspective can make all the difference.”
As the last of Lily’s team members dispersed, their faces still aglow with newfound Excel enlightenment, Kevin ambled over to my desk. He leaned in, his voice barely above a whisper,”Mate, you’d think knowing how to use a pivot table would be a basic requirement for working in reporting”. He shook his head in disbelief, a hint of amusement in his voice. “I can’t believe they’ve been doing all that manual work for so long. It’s like using a typewriter in the age of laptops.”
Unlike Kevin, I knew the reason behind the team’s lack of technical skills. It was a deliberate choice on Lily’s part. She hired people who would follow her lead without question, and who wouldn’t challenge her authority or disrupt her carefully constructed processes. She wanted data monkeys, not innovators.
I kept these thoughts to myself, a silent observer of the office’s intricate power dynamics. It was becoming clear that MA&Co was a battlefield of egos and hidden agendas, where survival depended on knowing when to speak up and when to hold your tongue.
As the day progressed, a subtle shift in the office atmosphere began to gnaw at me. While the rest of Lily’s team eagerly embraced the new Excel techniques, a noticeable tension seemed to radiate from Lily herself. Her usual brisk pace became even more frenetic, her lips pressed into a tighter line with each automated report I produced.
I could sense her unease, like a low hum beneath the surface of her interactions. Her eyes followed me with a mixture of suspicion and wariness, as if I were an intruder threatening the delicate balance of her domain.
I noticed her hovering around my desk more often, her gaze lingering on my screen as I worked my spreadsheet magic. Once sharp and direct, her questions now held a hint of defensiveness, as if she were testing me, searching for any sign of weakness or incompetence.
Her discomfort was understandable, I supposed. In a matter of hours, I had managed to streamline processes she had meticulously crafted over years. I had earned the admiration of her team, their laughter and camaraderie echoing through the once-silent Operations corner. It was clear that Lily felt her authority slipping away, her expertise challenged by a newcomer.
I could only imagine the thoughts swirling in her mind as she watched her team embrace change with open arms. Was she worried about becoming obsolete? Did she fear being replaced? Or was it simply the sting of pride, the realisation that her tried-and-true methods were no longer the most efficient or effective?
Whatever the reason, Lily’s unease was a palpable force, casting a shadow over the otherwise celebratory atmosphere. I knew I had to tread carefully, to balance my desire for progress with respect for her position and experience. But I also knew that change was inevitable, and I was determined to be a catalyst for it, even if it meant ruffling a few feathers along the way.
Continue to Chapter 4
