Hot take: that viral 2021 Excel speedrun video did more harm than good at my shop
Back in 2021 everybody on my feed was sharing that clip of some guy building a full invoice tracker in Excel in under four minutes, and I admit I bought the hype and forced my lead guy Danny to watch it twice. Six months later I sat down and timed us against our old paper log, and we were 20 percent slower on Fridays, mostly because half my crew kept stopping to mess with formulas instead of turning wrenches. The video was built to look fast, not to work on a shop floor where the wifi drops and the mouse is greasy. We went back to a whiteboard and a clipboard by March of 2022, and nobody has asked for a spreadsheet since. What bugs me is the comments under those clips still act like watching the video counts as learning the skill. Curious if any of you jumped on a productivity trend like that and had it blow up in your face.