The “Excel Humor” Instagram Page Shares 110 Humorous And Relatable Posts (New Pics)

Once upon a time (in the early 1980s to be specific), in a land far, far away (or not so far if you’re from the state of Washington), the Microsoft Corporation dreamed of creating a spreadsheet system that would become the livelihood of countless careers and the subject of many hilarious memes. That’s right, pandas, today we’re talking about your favorite green, spreadsheet application: Microsoft Excel.

Okay, that might not be exactly how the Excel origin story goes, but I’m sure you’re familiar with this famous program. Excel has been around since 1985, and it has completely dominated the field of virtual spreadsheets. But along with being the gorgeous view many accountants and analysts spend hours staring at every day, Excel is also the subject of plenty of memes and hilarious content online. 

Below, we’ve gathered some of the best posts from the Excel Humor Instagram account that you might find painfully relatable if you work in a field that relies heavily on the application. Keep reading to also find an interview with Bill Jelen, aka MrExcel, and be sure to upvote all of the pics that make you want to crack open a fresh, new spreadsheet right now!

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To learn more about the exciting world of Excel, we reached out to an expert on the topic: Bill Jelen, better known as MrExcel online. Bill has over 29 years of spreadsheet experience, has been doing Excel consulting since 1998, has been speaking about Excel since 2002, and has written over 40 books about Excel. He was also kind enough to share his expertise with us, so first, we wanted to know how Bill became an Excel expert in the first place and why.

“I started using the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet at the University of Notre Dame in the 1980s,” MrExcel told Bored Panda. “I was a teaching assistant for a professor. He was doing a research study to see if MBA students would learn better by reading a book or watching an interactive Laserdisc. At the end of the training, the MBA students would take a comprehensive exam on spreadsheets. My lowly job was to grade the exams. Once I realized that no one was getting more than a 60% score, I decided to learn every question on the test.”

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“This gave me a good head start before I began working.  Once I got a job in Accounting, then I was using first Lotus 1-2-3 and then Excel 40-60 hours every week,” Bill continued. “It is the daily use that really builds your skills.  And now, today, as I teach Excel in seminars, I get questions not just from 1 company, but I get to see the data problems from hundreds of companies. Solving those problems forces me to investigate every corner of Excel looking for ways to solve each problem.”

We were also curious what Bill actually thinks of Excel. “I love using Excel,” he told Bored Panda. “I love data. I love how I can use Excel to summarize and visualize data.   Many times, I create a fake data set to use while demonstrating a feature. I will see some unusual trend in the fake data and actually start to dive in to find the root cause. After 20 minutes of investigating, I have to remind myself that this data is fake. Any trends are purely random.”

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We also asked Bill if Excel is useful for everyone to know. “Anyone working in an office environment should have some Excel skills,” he shared. “Excel is great at tracking rows and columns of data (such as the number of miles you run each day of the week for the month). Some basic skills will let you build that worksheet, add some conditional formatting and totals so you can understand your personal trends.”

“Once you start using Excel to transform data at work, then you need to take a course to learn faster ways of doing tasks in Excel. It is very easy to spend 6 hours working on a task in Excel and someone who knows more features can knock that task out in 2 or 3 minutes using a Pivot Table or Automatic Subtotals or Power Query,” he added.

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Bill is also confident that Excel is here to stay, at least for a while. “It won't become obsolete in my lifetime,” he told Bored Panda. “But 50 years from now, there will be better ways to get answers from data. Already, Excel has the Analyze Data icon on the Home tab that uses a Machine Learning server to answer questions about your data posed in English. Let that technology improve for 20 or 30 years and you will be able to ask the 2050 version of Siri to analyze the data for you.”

If you’d like to learn more about Excel and gain some insight from MrExcel himself, be sure to check out his website right here, which features learning articles, videos, and a database of over 1 million Excel questions and answers.

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Okay, back to the Excel origin story. The real one, I promise. Excel was launched in 1985 by Microsoft to compete with the then-popular Lotus 1-2-3. Excel had one big advantage though, as it was created to be compatible with PCs and the Apple Macintosh computer, while Lotus 1-2-3 could only be used on PCs. Since its release, Excel has absolutely dominated the field and become a staple in many industries. 

According to ExcelHelp, some of the most important and popular features of Microsoft Excel are its abilities to: “efficiently model and analyze almost any data; zero in on the right data points quickly; create data charts in a single cell; access spreadsheets from virtually anywhere; connect, share, and accomplish more when working together; take advantage of more interactive and dynamic PivotCharts; add more sophistication to your data presentations; accomplish tasks easier and faster; harness more power for building bigger, more complex spreadsheets; and publish and share through Excel Services.”

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Thanks to all of its enticing features, there are now over 1.1 billion Excel users around the world. In fact, one study from Acuity Training found that many office workers spend about 38% of their time using Excel. The application is clearly used in a wide variety of industries and roles, but, according to TechTarget, some of the most common uses for Excel are collection and verification of business data; business analysis; data entry and storage; data analysis; performance reporting; strategic analysis; accounting and budgeting; administrative and managerial management; account management; project management; and office administration.  

And when it comes to the professions that rely the most heavily on Excel, Invest in Tech notes that financial analysts, administrative assistants, retail store managers, project managers, business analysts, data journalists and accountants are all avid Excel users. But having skills when it comes to Microsoft Excel can help you in almost any job, as a quick search on any online job board site will yield plenty of results for jobs requiring Excel proficiency.  

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But despite how common it is to utilize Excel during the workday, as 66% of office workers use the application at least once per hour, it’s not so easy to actually become an expert on the program. According to Acuity Training, people need help from colleagues about twice a week with Excel issues, and 12% of office workers have seen an Excel mistake cost over $12,000. This might be because less than half of us have ever received formal training when it comes to Excel, so it can take a while to get a really good grasp on the program.

If you want to become an Excel expert (or perhaps an Excelpert?), you’re going to want to take a course or receive the proper training to understand the application. In fact, expert Excel users are 400% more likely to have received formal training, which is definitely worth the time and effort to avoid making costly mistakes and spending unnecessary time completing simple tasks. “Given that [workers] spend around 20 hours per week using Excel, if a one-day course sped up their work by just 5%, it would save them over a week of work each year,” Acuity Training explains.

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I have to be honest with you, pandas. I don’t understand many of the jokes on this list because I simply don’t know the Excel lingo. There are a variety of factors that can make mastering Excel a challenge, but one of the first things users must learn is all of the specific vocabulary. Excel has a long list of terminology that’s required to understand, but here are some of the basics: cell, cell reference, active cell, workbook, worksheet, worksheet tab, column and row headings, formula, formula bar, address bar, filter, AutoFill, AutoSum, PivotTable, PivotChart, and source data. Some of the more advanced terms you’ll learn if you’re an avid Excel user are TREND function, VLOOKUP, table array, Col_index_num, Range_lookup, MAX and MIN functions, and AND function.  

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And where is the future of Excel going? Well, we have no way of knowing for sure, but if you ask the experts at ExcelHelp, they’ll tell you that the application’s prevalence won’t be dwindling any time soon. “As the Microsoft platforms continue to evolve, it becomes a full time job to stay up-to-date on the emerging technologies. Microsoft Excel will keep its position as the top platform to analyze data, create charts and presentations, and integrate with powerful tools for visual dashboards and BI workflows,” they predict on their site. “Business is moving more and more into cloud based computing for shear accessibility of data and collaboration. This is where we see the future of Microsoft Excel moving to a break-neck speed in the next few years to provide multi-user access to massive data for analysis, reporting, and considerable increases in efficiency and production.”

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If you spend all day staring at Excel spreadsheets, I hope you’re feeling seen, pandas. Not everyone speaks the language of Excel, but for those of you who are fluent, this list goes out to you. Keep upvoting the pics that you find painfully relatable or that you feel perfectly encapsulate the experience of using Excel on the daily, and then let us know in the comments what your thoughts are on the famous, green spreadsheet application. Then, if you’re in the mood for even more Excel-induced laughs, you can find our last publication on the same topic right here!

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