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You know the ditzy cheerleader stereotype? Blonde, unintelligent, blissfully unaware of her lack of knowledge or sense, but somehow too friendly and/or attractive to ever get mad at? I have a colleague who fits that stereotype* a little too well. So I'm going to refer to her as CL for CheerLeader.
And just to clarify, I like CL as a co-worker. She's dedicated to her job, and her interpersonal skills are excellent. She just seems to have uncommonly frequent Duh Attacks.
My current job is tech support. One of the aspects of that job is running a few SQL queries, one of which extracts some important numerical data. Those numbers get processed by a different unit in my organization in a way that can affect our funding. Naturally, we want to be sure it's right, so audits are necessary before the processing occurs. CL was chosen to perform the audits.
To do the audits, she compares my query with another query, both of which are displayed for her in a web browser as a table. The interface includes various fields by which she can change a few parameters to make different aspects of the reported data appear. Apparently, this is confusing. This week, she called me over to her desk, and we had the following conversation.
CL: Oh, good. You're here. I need to show you something. You know what this is, right?
She shows me my latest report, which had extracted the numbers for November.
Me: Yes, I wrote that one, so I know it rather well. Is there something wrong with it?
CL: I think so. See, I'm comparing it to this one.
She shows me the report she's using to audit with. Its parameters were still at their defaults, which were from the first day of the month to the current day.
Me: Why are--
CL: I think it's wrong. See, when I look at your report for November, it shows 120 units for Category H. But when I look at my audit report under Category H, it only shows 7 units in November. So, did we capture it wrong, or is there something broken in the report?
Me: You're auditing November's numbers with December data.
CL: What?
Me: See the second column in the audit report? It's showing December dates.
CL: Oh! ... Well, that's not what I need. Can I change it?
Me: Yes. Use the date fields at the top of this page.
CL: ... Those?
Me: Yes.
CL: ... How do I do that?
Me:
See the one that says "Enter Earliest Date"?
CL: Yeah.
Me: Put the first day of November in that.
She does so, then pauses to stare at the screen for a bit.
CL: Now what?
Me: See the one that says "Enter Latest Date"?
CL: Yeah.
Me: Put the last day of November in that.
She enters 12/1/2015 and executes the query.
Me: You're still going to get December data.
CL: I am? Oh! Because I put the first of December? I should put the last of November, right?
Me: Yes.
She changes the date.
CL: It didn't change.
Me: You need to execute the query again.
CL: How do I do that?
Me: Click the Run button, just like you did a minute ago when you still had the first of December in there.
CL: Oh!
So she runs the query again. Now she has the dates she needs, and I think I'm done. No, she wants me to stick around while she does at least one part of her audit, so she can point out any other potential problems without having to ask me to walk all the way to the opposite end of the building again. Okay, fine. After a few minutes...
CL: Ugh! This is so hard to read on a website! I wish I could put it in a spreadsheet.
Me: You can.
CL: Really? How?
Me: See the button near the date fields that says "Export to Excel"?
CL: Yeah.
I pause to see if she figures it out on her own. She doesn't.
CL: What about it?
Me:
Click that.
She clicks the button and is genuinely surprised to see it ask her if she wants to download and open the data as an Excel spreadsheet.
CL: Oh! That's great!
She gets the data open in Excel. She does a few sums in the most labor-intensive way I can think of, but I can't fault her too much on that. Excel can be intimidating for some people, and even though she was making it harder than necessary, she did get the formula right. At this point, she said she was satisfied that she could now audit her data correctly, and I excused myself to go back to my projects.
And then I realized something. The query I wrote to extract the numbers for the money-related processing and the query behind her audit report both point to the same data tables. I checked them. Not only do they point to the same tables, they collect the same data elements (though one has more detail than the other) and have the same filters (though one set is hard-coded and the other set is user-defined).
Essentially, she's auditing by comparing the data to itself. Like making one large batch of cookies and checking to make sure you got the recipe right by eating two of them and comparing the taste. (Which sounds like fun when it's cookies, but doesn't really serve a purpose either way.) So now I may have to audit her auditing process and write her a new auditing report.
*I'm not saying she is a ditzy cheerleader. Nor am I saying that all cheerleaders are dumb. I'm just saying that the dizty cheerleader stereotype is an almost perfectly accurate description of her.
And just to clarify, I like CL as a co-worker. She's dedicated to her job, and her interpersonal skills are excellent. She just seems to have uncommonly frequent Duh Attacks.
My current job is tech support. One of the aspects of that job is running a few SQL queries, one of which extracts some important numerical data. Those numbers get processed by a different unit in my organization in a way that can affect our funding. Naturally, we want to be sure it's right, so audits are necessary before the processing occurs. CL was chosen to perform the audits.
To do the audits, she compares my query with another query, both of which are displayed for her in a web browser as a table. The interface includes various fields by which she can change a few parameters to make different aspects of the reported data appear. Apparently, this is confusing. This week, she called me over to her desk, and we had the following conversation.
CL: Oh, good. You're here. I need to show you something. You know what this is, right?
She shows me my latest report, which had extracted the numbers for November.
Me: Yes, I wrote that one, so I know it rather well. Is there something wrong with it?
CL: I think so. See, I'm comparing it to this one.
She shows me the report she's using to audit with. Its parameters were still at their defaults, which were from the first day of the month to the current day.
Me: Why are--
CL: I think it's wrong. See, when I look at your report for November, it shows 120 units for Category H. But when I look at my audit report under Category H, it only shows 7 units in November. So, did we capture it wrong, or is there something broken in the report?
Me: You're auditing November's numbers with December data.
CL: What?
Me: See the second column in the audit report? It's showing December dates.
CL: Oh! ... Well, that's not what I need. Can I change it?
Me: Yes. Use the date fields at the top of this page.
CL: ... Those?
Me: Yes.
CL: ... How do I do that?
Me:
See the one that says "Enter Earliest Date"?CL: Yeah.
Me: Put the first day of November in that.
She does so, then pauses to stare at the screen for a bit.
CL: Now what?
Me: See the one that says "Enter Latest Date"?
CL: Yeah.
Me: Put the last day of November in that.
She enters 12/1/2015 and executes the query.
Me: You're still going to get December data.
CL: I am? Oh! Because I put the first of December? I should put the last of November, right?
Me: Yes.
She changes the date.
CL: It didn't change.
Me: You need to execute the query again.
CL: How do I do that?
Me: Click the Run button, just like you did a minute ago when you still had the first of December in there.
CL: Oh!
So she runs the query again. Now she has the dates she needs, and I think I'm done. No, she wants me to stick around while she does at least one part of her audit, so she can point out any other potential problems without having to ask me to walk all the way to the opposite end of the building again. Okay, fine. After a few minutes...
CL: Ugh! This is so hard to read on a website! I wish I could put it in a spreadsheet.
Me: You can.
CL: Really? How?
Me: See the button near the date fields that says "Export to Excel"?
CL: Yeah.
I pause to see if she figures it out on her own. She doesn't.
CL: What about it?
Me:
Click that.She clicks the button and is genuinely surprised to see it ask her if she wants to download and open the data as an Excel spreadsheet.
CL: Oh! That's great!
She gets the data open in Excel. She does a few sums in the most labor-intensive way I can think of, but I can't fault her too much on that. Excel can be intimidating for some people, and even though she was making it harder than necessary, she did get the formula right. At this point, she said she was satisfied that she could now audit her data correctly, and I excused myself to go back to my projects.
And then I realized something. The query I wrote to extract the numbers for the money-related processing and the query behind her audit report both point to the same data tables. I checked them. Not only do they point to the same tables, they collect the same data elements (though one has more detail than the other) and have the same filters (though one set is hard-coded and the other set is user-defined).
Essentially, she's auditing by comparing the data to itself. Like making one large batch of cookies and checking to make sure you got the recipe right by eating two of them and comparing the taste. (Which sounds like fun when it's cookies, but doesn't really serve a purpose either way.) So now I may have to audit her auditing process and write her a new auditing report.
*I'm not saying she is a ditzy cheerleader. Nor am I saying that all cheerleaders are dumb. I'm just saying that the dizty cheerleader stereotype is an almost perfectly accurate description of her.
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