A Lighter View
Confusion reigns
By K.E.H. Stagg

March 25, 2010

Communication isn’t usually a problem for me. I’m able to weigh the nuances of words to select the one with the precise shade of meaning that conveys exactly what I want. Unfortunately, this doesn’t translate well with numbers, nor with the numbers of experts who don’t always manage to complete their sentences, not to mention their thoughts, in conversation.

This week was a perfect example. If you were told,“The spreadsheet contains an erroneous formula and needs to be withdrawn,” wouldn’t you take that to mean you ought to recall the document in question and wait for a corrected document to be submitted? Hah! If that’s what you thought, you would be pure-D wrong.

Immediately after issuing a widely-distributed email based on that totally logical assumption, I was contacted by no less than three individuals, all of whom asked, “Isn’t it just the spreadsheet?” Then they began to email among themselves—with copies to me, as if I could make sense of their gibberish!—with even more cryptic comments, like: “Total effect?” and “Cumulative change.”

It turns out that while the spreadsheet some pencil head created with an embedded flawed formula did, indeed, change the overall total by tens of thousands of dollars, it was only a change to the long-term total, not the immediate, short-term total. And don’t even ask me how such a thing is possible, because that was never explained! Of course, the long-term/ short-term differential wasn’t even addressed in the original spreadsheet error notice, but somehow, roughly half of the internal distribution list had their communications decoders on “high reception” while I—tasked with calling back the faulty document—was left out of that informational loop.

Adding insult to injury, the same approximate cast of characters pulled a nearly identical stunt a few hours later. This time, however, I repeatedly inquired about long-term versus short-term effects, whether the recall had to be worldwide or merely local, and if the math had been qudruply and quintuply checked. Lo and behold! The recalcuation proved incorrect. But I didn’t have to play village idiot that time since I had learned how to decipher the half-thoughts, even though I don’t know what the calculation error was in either instance, and hadn’t distributed the erroneous document and, therefore, didn’t have to re-recall what had never been re-sent, if you follow me.

Too bad we all speak the same language! If the budget gurus spoke Swahili, or if I did, I wouldn’t expect to find any of their comments comprehensible. As it stands now, they prove the truth of the old adage: “English is the common language that divides millions of people.”