I love excel, but...

So the last couple days I've been pulling duty as Captain Excel at work.  I went in early the other day and spent until noon finishing the sheet for the cost analysis project.  Its not like I was using trig to create the forumlas for the sheet (pretty much just algebra), but hunting down the costs of everything associated with this project thats billable and then breaking that cost down in some cases to a per/case figure was quite some work.  And then, since the production project has only recently (as in the prior 2 days) been running half way decently it was almost impossible to give firm usage numbers for supplies.  What that meant is we had to dig into SAP for production numbers, use reasonable estimates to figure the formulas, and then input everything.  And of course once the project has been running smoothly for awhile, everything will need to be revisited and all costs and formulas are subject to change.  But at least I have the basics in place, so that shouldn't be too hard as long as I keep my giant stack'o'notes on hand to go refer back to.

However the result was pretty damn nice.  I wound up with a worksheet that applies an automatic fixed cost to each project run for categories such as housekeeping and disposal rates, and then all the other costs are driven by actual labor and production numbers.  So basically all the lead needs to do is plug in headcount for the various labor categories, the total number of straight time and full time hours for the day for each category, and then input the total cases and pallets created and presto...complete cost calculated for the project down to the value of the ink used from the microjet printers.  He can report cost for each project with under a minute's worth of input.

Of course by lunch that day my brain had melted.  Then today, which was the deadline for all this stuff because the folks way up on the foodchain were coming back today to look at them, I had to scramble to pull together 2 more sheets for shipping.  And of course that meant that all kinds of shit was going to go wrong with my normal job and dump a constant stream of emails and a phone that wouldn't stop ringing onto my lap while I'm trying to do all this other stuff.  Oh yeah, plus I was drafted into a test project that required 2 conference calls yesterday and 2 today, along with me having to be ready at a moment's notice when my turn in the script came up.  I've got 2 new guys in my department so when these problems arise I can't just fix them and be done with them.  Well I could, but then I wouldn't be much of a lead then.  So when these problems came up I gathered my crew and let them take turns with the hands-on while I walked them through the trouble-shooting and problem solving steps for some of the stuff that happened today since there were actually new problems today that hadn't cropped up for awhile. 

Did I mention I've been really fucking busy at work the last couple days? 

Now, regardless of what some of you might think of me based on comments I'll make on the board from time to time, I am actually a very laid back person.  I have been told that one thing people like about me at work is that they know what they'll get from me as far as response goes on a daily basis, and thats also why people in all departments come to me for help regularly.  As the one guy put it, he felt bad bugging me all the time but I'm the only person who doesn't tell him he's stupid when he needs help with SAP or with his station pc in general.  So in short, I tend to find a way to smile and laugh off the stress (at least externally heh) and move on to the next project.

However today I did lose it a little.  The shipping lead, who should have been doing his own presentations but didn't because he's useless and nobody expects anything from him anymore, got me to crack a little.  I was showing him the spreadsheets I had literally pulled out of my ass on a moment's notice that I had spent 2 hours working on that morning when I needed to work on my own presentation as well.  I was explaining the data he'd need to look up from his sheets to input and how he'd have to input it so the formulas would work and automatically calculate all his totals and average.  At this point he said "Man, thats a lot of stuff to look up.  I'm going to have to ask for more money".

Hm.  So I just sort of turned to him and said "Yeah, you totally should.  How much money are you going to ask them to give me for doing this for you?".  At that point he just kind of went "I think I should get going" and went back to surf Ebay or whatever it is he does all day.

So thats been my week.  I think tomorrow should be relatively calm.  I hope it will be, its Friday.  We get our bonus tomorrow (which I spent some of already on that pod :D) and I am picking up my son after work, so I am looking forward to a relaxing next couple of days.