top 90 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 129 points 9 months ago (16 children)

I recently had a hard time explaining to a coworker that the "Increase number of decimals" button in Excel doesn't work if you already exported to a CSV with only a decimal of precision. It worked on their end because they had the excel file, but I had the CSV. I managed to come up with a clever and innovative solution to the problem though; I gave up and worked on something else.

  • source
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    Excel is pretty awful software.Β 

    10-15 years ago it was good, but it just isn’t anymore.Β 

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 29 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Considering it is being saved in another format, I'd hardly consider this an excel problem.

    CSV has existed since before personal computers, much less Microsoft office.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (6 children)

    Maybe, by why wouldn't Excel let uou increase the number of digits in a CSV? The data is currently in Excel, and more digits isn't incompatible with the CSV format.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Because it's basically a text file. The data doesn't exist anymore once you open it as a CSV on another computer. It'd basically just add zeros to the end.

    They could probably get that info from the other file, but that would mean getting that person to give it to you again.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You can't increase the decimal precision beyond the limits of the available data which I think is what OP's coworker wasn't understanding -- unless I'm the one who misunderstood.

    The coworker rounded the numerical data during the conversion from xlsx to csv meaning there was less data in the exported csv than in the original Excel file. They seemed to think the data did still exist in the csv but it was being hidden and that they could simply change the precision to unhide it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Ahhh, the excel format keeps the precision but changes the display to 1 decimal. When exported to CSV, only that 1 decimal is exported, so you can't bring back what isn't there. But the original file still has it.

    I understand now, thanks! Definitely a coworker problem not an Excel problem then.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Nope. Still an excel problem. Why should changing a display option alter the underlying data on export?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Well, that's a good point. However, if I wanted to export a CSV with only one decimal place, it would be mighty annoying if changing it to one in Excel didn't save it like that in the CSV. Unless there was another option to control that.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    That’s actually pretty terrible. Can you load the csv and then save it again as an xls? Once it’s loaded, why does it care what the source format was?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago*

    As soon as you convert from an .XLS file to a .CSV file, the data and sig figs used to display that data are saved while the math formulas used to calculate that data are erased.

    This means that when you try to go from .CSV to .XLS, Excel doesn't know the original formula that created the data to then be able to display more decimal points. The formula is absolutely necessary to change sig figs of displayed data.

    The only other way I can think of that would allow one to change sig figs in .CSV data is if the .XLS file was converted with like the maximum number of sig figs displayed, or let's say 10-20. Then in a .CSV, you can modify the sig figs to something less, like 0-20.

    But I want to say that if you save that .CSV file after the sig fig change, where you original converted it with 10-20 sig figs but then changed them to 0-20, the .CSV overwrites the data and you lose the sig figs that you concatenated.

    Result: adding decimal points in a .CSV isn't possible.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 40 points 9 months ago (16 children)

    We just got a new employee at work. She is in her 60s and 100% computer illiterate. I had to give her training on how to use a mouse and how to click on bookmarks to open our shared sheets. She somehow deleted everything on one sheet the first day, but shes getting better. She doesn't own any computers and her phone is some no name model from 12 years ago. Im kinda impressed shes made it this far.

  • source
  • hideshow 16 child comments
  • [–] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Just going for it and fucking up over and over really is the best way to learn how to use computers... I was lucky enough to go through that as a kid/teen so the consequences were pretty meaningless.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I had such a double take reading your username

    I assume 1984 reference or is this a word used elsewhere I happened to learn from the book?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    I need to start faking computer illiteracy or at least downplaying my level of literacy. Employers notice how quickly I get computer-related tasks done, but then they expect that as my norm while my coworkers are struggling to use any device without a touch screen.

    The last new hire I trained was in his mid-twenties and lacked basic tech literacy outside of the iPhone. I asked him to write up a quick protocol using a template I sent him. He typed the text of the Outlook file preview into notepad and went from there. I was baffled.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Disgusting. At least use vim!

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Idk if windows (dad won’t let me swap :( noooooo) supports it plus I can’t learn to do stuff when tired

    Heard people need tutorials to close vim nah I’ll stay with n++

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    That's the youngest I've heard of someone like that. My grandpa was like that and in his 90s and I still thought he should get a computer for at least banking and stuff.

    She must have been in her mid 40's when the iPhone came out, that's young enough to be interested and learn about the tech. She must have just actively ignored it or refused out of principle or something.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 31 points 9 months ago

    Been under a team leader long time ago. She double clicked all web page links. It was the first time I have been silent while witnessing something so outrageous.

  • source
  • [–] 28 points 9 months ago

    Me watching someone who makes three times my salary use Excel for graphic design.

  • source
  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    my dude, try having to do a job for someone who makes more that year than you will your entire life, and see them struggle with any simple task.

    it doesn't matter the task. you will shit your gasket at the fact they will make more that year than you will your entire life, and you will not get a tip regardless. it will piss your nugget twice the flip fuck off.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 51 points 9 months ago (19 children)

    I have a colleague making close to twice my salary struggling with IT...but he's extremely skilled at his actual job.

  • source
  • hideshow 19 child comments
  • [–] 28 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I overheard someone considerably high up in my organization struggling to understand the concept of an email BCC (Blind Carbon Copy).

    He was trying to figure out how to notify a large number of people via email without letting them know who else was receiving the email.

    Some things may fall under IT but they should really fall under the category of things every professional should understand.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 46 points 9 months ago (13 children)

    But like... saving a PDF should not be considered IT lol

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 13 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    Yeah my bet is that the meme is facetious

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 25 points 9 months ago (8 children)

    Nope it's not facetious .. I'm an ICT professional and I see this regularly.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [+] -8 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Ok then, sure it's extreme but document handling is not necessarily a key (or even important) part of their work. Yes they absolutely shouldn't need to use 15min or get help to save a document, but if their skills in their actual job are spectacular and they produce the work of two in that area, of course they still should be compensated well. I don't know your specific case, but this is almost the case I mentioned.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] -2 points 9 months ago (6 children)

    It’s pretty funny how the people who only have computer skills are hating on people who only have their own skills too

    Computer support is literally only useful to other humans doing useful stuff

    These people have 0 usefulness outside of helping the guy print a pdf and yet they consider themselves so high and mighty

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    These people have 0 usefulness outside of helping the guy print a pdf...

    Until you click on a phishing link.

    This is the curse of IT. Perpetually undervalued yet absolutely essential. If IT were ever to disappear, the businesses they support become walking corpses.

    It chaps my ass that everyone working in business has grown up with computers being essential to business yet its somehow still acceptable for them to be functionally illiterate in using them.

    Sometimes its so fucking bad that the equivalent would be someone being granted a drivers license and given a car but they have no idea how to put it in park, let alone use the brakes.

    IT are the Dunedain Rangers protecting The Shire. They're not popular, they're barely acknowledged, often scorned, but without their presence The Shire cannot be.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    My industry could abandon most technology and we’d be fine but things would just take longer to do πŸ€·β€β™€οΈbut everyone I know still appreciates and respects IT anyway

    Most people just use their computers to accomplish other things in life and then go about their business without developing actual computer skills. The reason yall in IT is cause you were obsessed w computers enough to truly learn how to use them.

    You could always learn how to code an awful system that requires IT support if helping people print and plug in cables isn’t rewarding enough

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 8 points 9 months ago

    You seem to think that desktop support is the only IT job that exists, which is incorrect.

    I work in Infosec and my job isn't helping users with computer illiteracy, but I can still get frustrated when people don't know how to do basic tasks that their job requires.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    This is like saying Software Developers have a useless skill set, except to make the important, value creating, end users more productive.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    I've been in IT since it was called something else.

    90% of the work I do is to enable other people to do their job.

    Before IT, these people did their work on paper, which took more people, and more time, but they still did their work, and my job didn't exist.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    The fuck else is it? Did you come out your momma's vajayjay being able to save a pdf?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Yup. The key is are they paid to save pdfs? Or are they paid to do other things?

    I can save the shit out of some PDFs, but I’ve only ever made one sale in my entire life.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • Are they paid to use the toilet to go to the bathroom or are they paid for other things? If they're paid for other things, they should shit on the floor wherever they happen to be and let the janitors handle that since they're the ones paid to clean things up.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    No word of a lie, I worked in a place where HR would print the company credit card statements, load the printed sheets back into the printer scanner, and email them to each employee individually from the copier.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 37 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Followed by listening to them complain about how they are struggling with money because of how much their cars are costing them. Meanwhile I can't even afford to learn to drive and had to walk or cycle to work in the pissing rain again.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago

    Not to mention that damn AC vent blowing right on ya

  • source
  • [–] 20 points 9 months ago

    Dean at my college makes 4x my salary, he thinks I personally invented "VPN" to confuse him and make his life difficult

  • source
  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago

    I had a user come to me with a PDF issue my app was generating. They kept getting the document in landscape, and wanted it on portrait. They were the only user with this issue, and it stumped me. I checked the underlying code, and everything was set to portrait mode, except the last page, which contained a sketch and was set to landscape mode.

    I asked him to show me exactly what he did when he made the PDF. Instead of just downloading the provided PDF, he had his system set to open it on Adobe Reader. He would then use a PDF printer (Microsoft, or cutePDF) to save the doc. His printer was set to landscape.

  • source
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Everyone here is bashing in op, but when you have to help the 50eth person who clearly doesn't even understand the fundamentals of their job, with editing a word file even tho you already sent them the tutorial, it just gets to you. But I guess I did sign up for first level support.

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Look, careers aren't about doing your job well, they're about being likeable whether or not you're competent. If people like you you'll get paid more even if you can't figure out how to export a word document.

    I agree wholeheartedly, OP doesn't deserve the bashing, meme is dead on. My daily experience.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Now combine this ordeal with getting them to properly sign the damn thing.

  • source
  • [–] 13 points 9 months ago (7 children)

    Stupid brain surgeons, don't know how to save to pdf, I should make more money than them!

  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    I don't think I could trust a brain surgeon who can't save to pdf in this day and age.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    If you are a surgeon but, in the year 2026, haven't learned 'File>Save As...' or 'click the little disk icon' I doubt your competence to have learned anything else. Saving a file requires far less education and adaptability. I mean, it's not exactly brain surgery.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    "What's a disk?" -- Recently graduated surgeon

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    "The save icon. The same icon that's used in every damned piece of software you used in the hopefully better part of two decades of education you got before they slapped a scalpel in your hand. If you can't recognise it, you probably used chatGPT to fake your way through school and shouldn't be a surgeon." - patients of the world

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    I used to work at an office where all of our documents were kept electronically. A few of my coworkers couldn't figure out how to open any file type except pdf, so whenever I added documents to the system, I'd convert anything else and add a pdf copy for them.

    Another group of coworkers was infuriated by this, because they believed I was spending hours every day scanning a ton of paper documents unnecessarily, because I guess they didn't know any other way to create a pdf?

    I ended up being called into a meeting with my manager to justify why I was wasting so much time scanning documents. I explained that I wasn't scanning anything, I was just opening files that we received in an electronic format and clicking "export to pdf".

    He was blamed me for none of the people who complained knowing how to do this. We were all administrative staff.

  • source
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (11 children)

    depends

    are they trying to export a PDF from Microsoft Word? because Microsoft makes that difficult nowadays

  • source
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Can't you just print and choose "print to pdf" as your "printer"?

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    It's really not... There are several pretty straightforward ways to do it and they're all pretty old standards. Save as > select PDF as the file type. Or if you have Adobe Reader/Acrobat installed, word has a button right under save as that says Save As Adobe PDF. Or you can print to PDF using the Adobe print function in the printers. Lastly windows has a built in PDF printer by default. All of these work pretty damn reliably. If you can't save a PDF from a word doc, it's either your computer or you.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    You're showing your privilege lol

    When you save an office file to PDF and you are in a OneDrive environment, it doesn't save it locally - it saves it to the cloud, and then downloads it locally. it's fucked up

    I'm not going to fault people for having trouble when the "save this file as PDF" option doesnt result in a PDF immediately in the save directory

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Interesting considering I can save as a PDF while offline

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    if I remember next week, I'll try to save one while offline and see what happens

    I can tell you that if I use "save as PDF" while online with onedrive not running (whether because I shut it down or because it crashed and didn't restart itself), the pdf will not show up locally for me

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago
    load more comments
    view more: next β€Ί
    36 comments in c/programmer_humor@programming.dev view that post