SUCCESS!!!

At long last, after waiting and waiting and begging and clawing and
bribing (with candy and fancy invitations I printed off my computer)
I had my Microsoft Excel class and it was a great success!!!

All 4 accountants (including one who just started a couple days ago
and I didn't even know) and the mayor's secretary attended. After
carrying one computer upstairs so we could all be in the same room on
two computers and hustling late people to get into my improvised
classroom, we started about 15 minutes late - not too bad by Moldovan
standards.

As I've stated before on this blog, the reason for doing the Excel
class is that this program makes all kinds of computations that would
take hours to do with a calculator and forever to do in your head.
Our accountants are overworked and their time could be better spent
working on problems in our village that actually require human
creativity or a human body instead of more or less mindlessly
punching numbers into a calculator.

Before the class I made up the basic outline of two files which we
would complete for the lesson. The first was a family's monthly
expenses divided into the categories taxes, gas, electricity, and
telephone. The second was a list of everyone in the office that
included their full names, DOB, job title, street and number, and
telephone. I showed them how they could easily write formulas that
would automatically compute the monthly totals and averages the the
family needed to pay across all the different categories of bills as
well as the average and total cost for each category. In other
words, at a glance someone could see the total they payed in August
was $200 which broke into an average bill of $50 and that in the
course of a year they payed a total of $1200 for electricity with an
average bill of $100 [Of course I'm using easily divisible numbers
here because I'm not as smart as I look (which is pretty damn smart),
but in real life and in my class the numbers don't work out so
simply.] Then we made a line chart from the table of numbers so one
could easily analyze trends in the cost of living - like that it's
more expensive in general in the winter.

Then in the next file they filled in all their personal information,
and then using Excel's "autofilter" option, we were able to instantly
arrange all the information alphabetically by last name, or first
name, or the street on which people lived, or even in order by date
of birth. I think this will be very helpful during the next election
to see who has voted and who hasn't, or if the office wanted to see
who where the top 10 delinquent tax payers, or whenever people need
to make lists.

After the class one of the accountants asked me how
to make a new formula to figure out various percentages that were due
for different taxes. It was something not taught in my class, but
something she thought of on her own. Creativity! So then for the
next 45 minutes we were huddled around one computer while they made
up their own file that would be useful in real life and I
occasionally showed them how to do something when they got stuck. By
the end of it, they were all grinning from ear to ear, amazed at how
easily the computer instantly made computations for hundreds of
people, computations that probably took them days. One jokingly
asked, "Why didn't you show us this before?" I jokingly yelled back,
"I've been trying for the last three weeks!"

I can't want for my next class, which should be in a week or two, but
I'm going to continue to try work daily with our new accountant, who
seems the most experienced with the computer. Work with your best
and they'll work with the rest.

And at the end of class I gave out chocolates and a certificate of
completion of MSExcel, Level 1. I think their lives are about to get
a lot easier.