I realised today that I work in a Dilbert cartoon.

The company I work for sent out, by email, a helpful tool for us all to use to plan our schedules. It was a spreadsheet. It was bigger than some *programs* I have. The only way it could possibly have been more insanely complicated would be if it was written entirely in Ancient Phoenician.

Was its use optional? No.

Just like I've always done, I planned my schedule on a bit of paper, a process which took me roughly four minutes. I then spent two and a half hours attempting to retroactively fill it into the spreadsheet in such a way that the same results came out and it looked like I had used the spreadsheet to plan the schedule.

This proved to be so impossible, not only for me but for a number of other people, that an hour-long international conference call was scheduled last Friday to discuss the helpful new spreadsheet. Because I am lucky enough to reside 12,000 miles away from my co-workers, this meant staying up quite late at night so all the time zones would fit in for everyone else.

We were supposed to send our completed spreadsheets back by Wednesday, so I stayed up all night on Tuesday desperately trying to finish it enough to make sense. Finally there was light at the end of the tunnel.

On Wednesday morning, a new email advised us that attached was a New Revised Version of the helpful new spreadsheet. It told us to ignore the old one and fill in this one instead. The new version is just as insanely complicated, but different enough so that the data can't simply be copied in from the previous version.

I would like to state that the management of this company wouldn't be able to find their own bottoms with both hands, but this is clearly not true. They *can* find their bottoms with both hands. The trouble is, to do so they require Basic_Anatomy.pdf, Instructions_Hands.doc, Example.doc, and fourteen revised versions of How_To_Find_Your_Bottom_With_Both_Hands.xls. There's nothing wrong with this company which numerous violent deaths wouldn't cure.

Brunnen-"maybe that's why they hire people who live 12,000 miles away"G