Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel: The Spreadsheet That Became a War Criminal
Growing up, I thought Microsoft Word was the king of office software. Every school assignment, every last-minute research paper, and even those cringy personal projects (like my 12-year-old self’s attempt at writing a novel) were all crafted in Word. It was simple. Predictable.
Then, adulthood happened. And suddenly, Excel was everywhere.
At first, I resisted.
"Why would I need a spreadsheet? I’m not an accountant."
"Aren’t tables just… glorified lists?"
"Surely I’ll never need to learn VLOOKUP."
Oh, how naïve I was.
The Rise of Excel in Everyday Life
Fast forward a few years. You get a job—whether it’s as an executive, an analyst, an accountant, or just the unlucky guy who gets assigned to "handle the numbers." Suddenly, Excel is no longer a choice. It’s a way of life.
It starts small. A few formulas here and there. Maybe a SUM() or an AVERAGE() function. But then, things escalate.
Before you know it, you’re buried in pivot tables, wrestling with circular references, and questioning your sanity because of an #N/A error that refuses to go away.
One day, you look at yourself in the mirror and realize:
"I am no longer a person. I am an Excel user."
Excel as a Weapon of Mass Destruction
But Excel’s reign of terror doesn’t stop at ruining work-life balance. No, its crimes against humanity run much deeper.
1. Using Excel as a Database
Somewhere along the way, some "visionary" (aka an executive who didn’t want to pay for an actual database system) decided that Excel could function as a full-fledged relational database.
- Need to store customer data? Excel.
- Need to manage inventory? Excel.
- Need to track employee performance? Excel.
- Need to store thousands of rows of financial transactions? You guessed it—Excel.
The IT department begged. They pleaded. They said, "Please, for the love of all things holy, use an SQL database."
But no. The Excel warriors stood their ground.
"Why use a database when Excel has FILTER and SORT?"
Years later, the spreadsheet is now 500 MB, crashes every time it opens, and requires a sacrifice to the Microsoft gods just to function.
2. The Infamous Excel Spreadsheet That Led to a $6 Billion Loss
In 2012, JP Morgan Chase lost $6 billion because of an Excel error. A simple copy-paste mistake in a risk model resulted in miscalculations that cost billions of dollars.
Let that sink in.
A spreadsheet error cost more money than the GDP of some countries.
But don’t worry, Excel will totally work fine as a database for your small business.
3. The Government’s Love Affair with Excel
Excel’s influence extends beyond the corporate world—it has entrenched itself into government systems.
- The UK government once miscounted COVID-19 cases because they were storing patient data in Excel 2003, which had a row limit of 65,536. So, when the data exceeded that? It just stopped recording.
- In 2014, a simple Excel mistake led to misallocating billions of pounds in the European Union budget.
- Even the US Department of Defense has been caught using Excel for military logistics.
I can already imagine the general shouting:
"Deploy the tanks!—wait, why is my column misaligned?"
"Oh no, someone sorted the rows without the ID column. We lost track of half our assets."
Excel: The Ultimate Power Move
Despite its war crimes, Excel remains undefeated.
You know you’ve reached true executive status when:
- You use Excel more than any other program.
- You no longer type numbers—only formulas.
- Your boss asks for a “simple report,” and you respond with a 30-sheet workbook, complete with conditional formatting, pivot tables, and VBA macros that only you understand.
- You refer to real-life decisions as "IF statements."
At this point, Excel is no longer just software—it’s a state of mind.
Final Thoughts: Resistance Is Futile
If you’re a student reading this, enjoy your blissful ignorance while it lasts. Soon, Excel will find you.
And when that day comes, remember:
- Never trust merged cells.
- Backup your files, because Excel WILL crash.
- And for the love of all things good—DO NOT use Excel as a database.
Or do. It’s your funeral.
File Format
Mind. Blown: The Great XLSX XML Reveal and the ODF Plot Twist
Okay, buckle up, because this one still makes my brain do a little internal cartwheel every time I think about it. For years, we've all been happily double-clicking our .xlsx files, blissfully unaware of the digital shenanigans happening under the hood. We see a spreadsheet, we manipulate cells, we save, and we move on.
But here's the kicker, the moment you realize you've been living a beautiful lie: that .xlsx file? It's not some proprietary, binary magic. It's actually a ZIP archive containing a bunch of XML files!
Let that sink in for a second. Rename an .xlsx file to .zip, unzip it, and BAM! You'll find a folder structure brimming with XML files. These files meticulously describe everything in your spreadsheet: the cell values, the formatting, the formulas, even the chart definitions. It's like finding out your stoic, impenetrable accountant is secretly a passionate poet who expresses themselves entirely in meticulously structured stanzas.
The mind-blown moment isn't just the technical quirkiness of it all. It's the realization that this seemingly complex, proprietary Microsoft format is built on a foundation of open, human-readable XML. It's like discovering that the secret ingredient in your favorite fast-food sauce is just… ketchup and mustard.
And then, the plot thickens, adding another layer of "wait, what?!" to the whole saga. Remember OpenOffice XML (ODF)? That open standard, developed by the open-source community, designed to be a truly interoperable format for office documents? Well, here's where the satire gets a little spicy.
Microsoft, after years of pushing their older, proprietary formats, eventually jumped on the XML bandwagon. And guess what the core of their new .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx formats (collectively known as Office Open XML or OOXML) was? You guessed it (or maybe you're just as mind-blown as I was): an XML-based structure.
Now, here's the bit that makes you raise an eyebrow and chuckle wryly. While Microsoft's OOXML and ODF share the fundamental concept of using XML within a ZIP container, they are not identical. However, the irony is that the idea of an open, XML-based format for office documents was championed and pioneered by the open-source community with ODF.
It's almost like watching a big corporation finally embrace the cool new thing the smaller, more agile folks were doing, and then presenting their slightly different version as their modern standard. Imagine the open-source community being like, "Hey, we've been using this awesome open XML format for ages!" and Microsoft responding with, "Oh yeah? Well, we've invented this new XML-based thing that's totally different... but also kinda the same... but ours has more corporate flair!"
It's a testament to the power of good ideas, even if the eventual adoption comes with a side of corporate rebranding. The fact that the dominant office suite in the world is now built on an open standard, even if it's their own flavor of it, is a significant shift.
So, the next time you save your spreadsheet as an .xlsx, take a moment to appreciate the layers of absurdity. You're essentially creating a glorified text file, zipped up for convenience, running on a 64-bit machine that could probably simulate the entire history of spreadsheet software in its sleep. And the whole revolution towards open formats? Well, let's just say the open-source community planted the seed, and the big guys eventually built their mansion on that foundation, with a few extra proprietary gargoyles on the roof, just for kicks. Mind. Blown. Again.
