Friday, February 03, 2006

Continued, unnoticed

Superman is passé. Spiderman is clingy (pun intended). And Batman was never really that popular anyway. We need a new age, tech-savvy, white-collared superhero!

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing the 21st century superhero, Excelman.
Surprisingly, and totally unpredictably, he also has a female counterpart, Excelwoman, who claims that she is The 'woman of substance' as opposed to bimbos such as Batwoman, Catwoman and the like.

While the birth of other superheroes can be attributed to rising crime and a general lack of goodness in society, the birth of Excelman and Excelwoman can approximately and appropriately be blamed on Microsoft and MS Excel, and a general lack of goodness in the corporate world. Also, a general lack of ideas about what can be done with the data collected about any random process in any random industry. Such were the dark times, when companies decided to employ these superheroes who do nothing but stare at rows and rows of data-filled spreadsheets all day, and generate complicated, yet colourful, tables and charts of no consequence. Said tables and charts are then titled 'XYZ analysis for productivity improvement', or other such important sounding names. Said tables and charts are then presented by the Superbosses at supermeetings to Super-superbosses. While the Superbosses take credit for the impressive work, the Superhero, like all other superheroes, remains faceless and nameless, and continues to work... unnoticed.


PS: Continued Unnoticed is Pointy's blog, which has interesting works of (dreamy) fiction interspersed with his trademark PJs :)

20 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Excel man has also got its adversary. Yep, the crash! When you have prepared a 10 worksheet excel with lot of macros and graphs and going to present in a meeting or trying to take printout, it CRASHES !!

Good luck with your 'Excel' Man...

5:55 PM  
Blogger Archster said...

'Excel Man'?

lol... cheers to the Excel Man then!

6:04 PM  
Blogger educatedunemployed said...

HEHEHE,Are those the only heroes we will be reduced to drool over????

8:52 PM  
Blogger Casablanca said...

Green,
Ah, you seem to be one of the heroes. Yes, Crash is our nemesis, but can be avoided with 'Save As'. It takes skill, but you have to master it.

Archster,
And the ExcelWoman, one of whom stands right infront of you. Cheers!

EU,
But but but... I never thought Spiderman or Batman was droolworthy either.

8:58 PM  
Blogger educatedunemployed said...

I luuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrveeeeeeeeee Spiderman...With great power comes great responsibilty....:D

9:22 PM  
Blogger Dreamy Eyed Gal said...

Spiderman is my favourite among the superheroes mentioned...he's adorable;-)...btw,slight change in URL agen

9:51 PM  
Blogger Brown Magic said...

does excelman wear spandex though? That is the true test of a real superhero - that and preferrably underwear on the outside of his clothes.

10:48 PM  
Blogger Point 5 said...

No wonder the ExcelMen at Investment Banking firms rake in Fat salaries.....they have chosen to trade physical strenght for monetary benefits.

Thanks for giving free publicity to my blog

11:27 PM  
Blogger Jinguchakka said...

You forgot the Wordman and the Wordwoman. Also the PPTman and the PPTwoman! lol. Particularly the PPT guys bullshit a lot. And they are paid to do that. lol

11:34 PM  
Blogger alice said...

yeah...excel...grt shitt...i hate it...but cant live without it..

1:30 AM  
Blogger Anshul said...

what about Mailman? without him, absolutely nothing would be possible!

2:18 PM  
Blogger Casablanca said...

EU and Dreamy Eyed Gal,
There are better men to drool over out there, than spandex-wearing, masked superman. I know its difficult to believe, but I am sure there is some truth in that ;)

Brown Magic,
Tsk tsk... the new age superheroes wouldnt be caught dead in spandex. They wear the latest business suits with expensive shoes (hehe, that's me!) and work under the false name of 'Analysts'.

Pointy,
Yes, you are right. Investment Banks are the best breeding grounds for such Excel(lent) Men and Women.
Publicity... ah, I'll send the cheque to you soon :D

Jingu,
You see after the Excelman has done his bit, said Superboss then presents his finding as the PPTman. Thus, as is very clear, PPTman has no credit which he can rightfully claim. Tsk tsk.

Alice,
Yes yes, hate-it-but-cant-live-without-it is what we say about all such things, now dont we? ;)

Vikram,
This Excelwoman takes offense to the accusation that she is capable of only "data" and "comparison" conversations. I assure you, and the 100+ posts on my blog stand as proof, that such is not the case.
Of course, the second part of your comment does not disturb me at all, thankfully :D

Anshul,
Ah, but the Mailman has been around for years, leading to the general human tendency of now taking him for granted. Sheesh, what has the world come to?

3:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi pal..
long time...

I know you get pisse off with tags, but this tag might be good..
LOL

5:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

and ah!! excelman....

we had a guy in my team who does wonders with the excel. I only have to tell him what i want and krrrr he will write a few( not very few) lines of macros and the excel stats doing strange things. he had just been poached. boohoo.

VLOOKUP remain my favorite term

5:58 PM  
Blogger educatedunemployed said...

Now can you see the dearth of good men in my(our) lives?????

10:45 PM  
Blogger Casablanca said...

Anthony,
Ah, that tag has come my way before, and has been dispensed with. Please see my post 'Juice' a few days back :)
PS: VLOOKUP, my friend, is just the tip of the iceberg ;)

EU,
Tell me about it, girl!

1:00 AM  
Blogger aknowkneemoose said...

lol!

When I joined my current project, I was forewarned by my colleagues that 'Excel skills' were even more important than my programming skills. I thought they were kidding... but as it turns out, the profits made by the firms each quarter depend on... you guessed it: Excel!

(Ok, this is the FIRST time EVER that I got a captcha such as 'pluprrph' on a gal-blog... else it was always easy! See... I'm not paranoid at all! Big Brother is indeed reading it all! :p)

5:55 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Negative brownie points for belittling my hunky Bruce Wayne (aka Batman)... =(

BTW, Excelwoman totally kicks Excelman's ass! Even though superboss doesn't know about it...

And the phrase "general lack of goodness in the corp world"..oh so hilarious!

2:03 PM  
Blogger Casablanca said...

Excel is the panacea for the corporate world and its complications. Hail Excel!
And you really are paranoid about your captcha :p

2:06 PM  
Blogger aknowkneemoose said...

I'm paranoid. period :D

Oh. this one's complex too:

vzslttsd

:D

I think I gotta eat my own words :p

10:50 PM  

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