scrabbler1
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2009
- Messages
- 6,705
The other day, I found another way to use a special skill I learned from my years of working for something outside of work and not just for personal use.
Having worked with spreadsheets for my 23-year career in the workforce, I have tried to find ways to use those skills for other tasks outside of work. The first big one was in developing a spreadsheet to aid me in the school Scrabble tourneys I run. I actually began developing the spreadsheet when I was still working but continue to use it and enhance it whenever something new arises in the tourneys. Time is precious in these tourneys, so the more things I can automate or speed up, the more time I can allocate for the kids to play their games. Sometimes, figuring out the pairings for each round can be rather complicated, so the spreadsheet with all of its bells and whistles makes it easy and error-free.
But I found another way to use a spreadsheet to help with another activity I partake in. In one of my square dance clubs, we have had a problem with some of the computer cards. We use these cards so that the couples get to dance with as many of the other couples as possible, and if couples have to sit out now and then because we don't have enough for a square, that is done in a fair and balanced way.
But in the last few months, we discovered that these cards contained a few errors. One time, we had 5 couples gather at one square (instead of the usual 4) because one card had a mistake. (One couple simply moved to a square which had only 3 couples.) Another card was missing a number. Another card got lost. And a few cards had become unreadable in spots due to wear and tear.
So what I did was to enter all the data from the cards into a spreadsheet in such a way so that I could find and clean up the errors and format them so I could reprint them onto card-stock paper cleanly and wrap them with thick clear packaging paper (like laminating them). The latter tasks belong in an art class LOL but the former tasks were the tough ones, trying to figure out where the errors were and trying to reconstruct a missing card.
But after fiddling around with the raw data from the cards I was able to do all of that, then print the repaired cards out and do the art-class stuff. The (elderly) folks at my dance club were quite impressed, too!
Any of you have any stories about how you used any of your work skills for something which helped others in your ER life?
Having worked with spreadsheets for my 23-year career in the workforce, I have tried to find ways to use those skills for other tasks outside of work. The first big one was in developing a spreadsheet to aid me in the school Scrabble tourneys I run. I actually began developing the spreadsheet when I was still working but continue to use it and enhance it whenever something new arises in the tourneys. Time is precious in these tourneys, so the more things I can automate or speed up, the more time I can allocate for the kids to play their games. Sometimes, figuring out the pairings for each round can be rather complicated, so the spreadsheet with all of its bells and whistles makes it easy and error-free.
But I found another way to use a spreadsheet to help with another activity I partake in. In one of my square dance clubs, we have had a problem with some of the computer cards. We use these cards so that the couples get to dance with as many of the other couples as possible, and if couples have to sit out now and then because we don't have enough for a square, that is done in a fair and balanced way.
But in the last few months, we discovered that these cards contained a few errors. One time, we had 5 couples gather at one square (instead of the usual 4) because one card had a mistake. (One couple simply moved to a square which had only 3 couples.) Another card was missing a number. Another card got lost. And a few cards had become unreadable in spots due to wear and tear.
So what I did was to enter all the data from the cards into a spreadsheet in such a way so that I could find and clean up the errors and format them so I could reprint them onto card-stock paper cleanly and wrap them with thick clear packaging paper (like laminating them). The latter tasks belong in an art class LOL but the former tasks were the tough ones, trying to figure out where the errors were and trying to reconstruct a missing card.
But after fiddling around with the raw data from the cards I was able to do all of that, then print the repaired cards out and do the art-class stuff. The (elderly) folks at my dance club were quite impressed, too!
Any of you have any stories about how you used any of your work skills for something which helped others in your ER life?