I wasn’t always the Excel loving geek you have come to know and love.

At some point, I discovered that being a hippy wasn’t a career choice. And while rock and roll was “here to stay”, it wasn’t going to pay the bills.

After a brief stint in banking I decided that bookkeeping might not suck.

I liked all those nice neat columns of numbers. Adding things up and getting reliable results appealed to my need for order in a chaotic world. In those days, spreadsheets were big pieces of papers with columns and rows and they were the primary tool in the world of finance – that and a big honking desk adding machine.

Yep, I used one of those…

I did what is expected in life. I picked a lane, focused on accounting and earned my designation.

Slight change of focus, but it’s relevant. I have a fondness for science fiction – the future looking, society changing type of science fiction – not the aliens blowing up the universe kind. Computers were the epitome of the future.

Happily, accountants were early adopters of computers. We knew super-charged calculators when we saw them. Bits and bytes were logical – like numbers. They just made sense.

And with computers came spreadsheet software. First there was VisiCalc. For me, this was a passing fancy. But I fell in love with SuperCalc.  Like all young love, it didn’t last. SuperCalc gave way to Corel’s Quattro Pro. For a while Quattro Pro and Lotus fought for my affection. I had to chose – and I chose Lotus 123. Me and Lotus – boy, we could sing and dance.

And then, one day, a new computer came with Microsoft Office and Excel pre-installed. I ignored the lure of something new and continued to be loyal to Lotus 123. Except I kept sneaking over to visit Excel.

Excel won, simply by always being there; for offering me ways to port my spreadsheets and skills from Lotus 123 with little pain; by offering new features here and there.

Sometimes I still miss Lotus. We had such fun together. But Excel keeps surprising me, after all these years. It never gets old. Sometimes Excel’s latest face-lift isn’t as successful as we might have hoped. And other times – it is a game changer. Excel 2013 was a game changer.

At some point my career morphed into teaching. It started with explaining and training. The next thing I knew I was in front of a classroom. That tapped into my secret desire to be on stage. Excel was still my constant companion. I used it to manage my lessons and my classes. I kept track of grades. And I integrated Excel into lessons whenever I could.

I continue my love affair with Excel (and with accounting and teaching).

I may be a Chartered Professional Accountant, but I wear my geek badge proudly.

Rock on.