Excel-lent

I am sitting in the computer centre right now...

It is 10.50 pm right now...

Under normal circumstances, I would have been sitting here for the love of Orkut, Youtube and associated time-pass browsing activities..

But noooooooooooo....
We are fachas in IIM A...
Trivial things like time pass is not for us mortals...

Me and the other 14 people sitting here are breaking our head on writing Excel programs that fall in that irritating realm of problems that just almost elude us...
Its like - sit here , look at the screen, look at the problem statement, look at the screen again, make faces at the screen, look around you and repeat the entire cycle...
It is like almost waiting for the solution to hit you... It been like that for the last 3 hrs !!!...

Everyday we have Computer classes at 11am to 1.30 pm and then 4.30 pm to 6.45 pm ... This is when we find out how much can we push our luck with Excel sheets... By the way, the timings are the official timings - that is when we have profs in class.. for the other 9-10 hrs , we try figuring out what the Profs were saying !!!...

Like all other things.. the prep class has its share of over-zealous characters who were earlier making a living out of writing these very programs at TCS,infy etc... Nothing wrong with them ..it is just the way, they will gloat over their Excel sheets... like some mama goose looking proudly at her gooslings..

These guys will complete the problem in 15-20 mins.. (This is the average time for normal people to UNDERSTAND what is happening in the problem...!!) Then, Mama Geese will flaunt their excel sheets - all replete with neat colour fonts graphs, and other 99 formatting tricks...

The conversations will go something like this
Me (Average Joe) : "This is one of those problems where we will first try to find the salaries of the employees and match them with their bonus incentives. Then somehow, get the highest paid employee and display his name..."

Enter HOT SHOT COMPUTER ENGINEER FROM HOT SHOT INSTITUTE AND WORKING AT HOT SHOT COMPANY USED TO WRITING HOT SHOT PROGRAMS
Hot Shot : "Duuuudddeee... You dotn have to bother with all that trouble. Just put a VLOOK on columns, using the INDEX and MATCH , get the columns and rows . Name your RANGES, and Put in a DSUM on the whole array with MAX condition on Salary Range and Display it... "

This is where Hot shot sees 7 people .. 4 with blank faces , 1 looking at the ceiling, and the other two looking bewildered beyond belief..as if they were just electrocuted or struck by lighting ...

It is kinda comical when such scenes unfold.. One guy will have all the gyan... and will try to explain to seven other people.. Usually two things happen
a) The enlighthened One while explaining the fundas , will lose his way...and lose his halo and become mortal again..
b) Seven ppl will think that they have understood the fundas, will solve the problem... next day, the prof. will ask 3 fundamental basic questions and we will end up back to SQUARE ONE...

I have to go now...
EXCEL-Lence awaits... and I want to play frisbee too... Waiting for others to come back from the movie...