Just had a Wednesday where three different coworkers asked for help with the same excel problem

I work at a small accounting firm in Ohio, nothing fancy. But last week, three separate people came to my desk asking how to do a VLOOKUP. Not even a complicated one. Just matching invoice numbers. I showed each of them once and by the third time I wrote out a one page cheat sheet and put it on the shared drive. It took me maybe 20 minutes total but it made me realize how many little things we all just struggle through alone instead of asking or sharing. Has anyone else had a moment like that where you notice a pattern and it changes how you approach helping people at work?

3 comments

3 Comments

torres.thea12d ago

Oh man, the cheat sheet move is gold. I did the same thing with our shared drive for pivot tables. After the fourth person asked me how to refresh data, I just wrote a one pager with screenshots and pinned it. Now when someone asks, I just send the link and offer to walk through it if they get stuck. It actually cut down the repeat questions by like 80% because people finally have something to reference on their own. But the real trick is making it stupid simple, like include the actual button labels and menu paths because if they can't find VLOOKUP on their own, they definitely aren't guessing where "insert function" lives.

emerym3612d ago

Honestly @torres.thea nailed it with the screenshot thing. I swear half the people at my old job thought "insert function" was some kind of hidden treasure you had to find with a map and a candle.

oscarc1212d ago

Makes you wonder why the hell most software doesn't just come with a built-in simple manual that's actually useful. Nobody reads the help section anymore because it's always written by some engineer who thinks in code, not by a regular person who just wants to know where the button is.