Death by Spreadsheet: Confessions of an Excel Survivor

It starts innocently enough.
Just a few rows. A tab or two. Maybe a pivot table if you're feeling reckless. “Let’s just keep this simple,” you whisper to yourself, like a fool.

Two hours later, you're 47 tabs deep, nesting IF statements like Russian dolls, and scrolling sideways until your wrist clicks. Your spreadsheet has frozen for the third time. Your laptop fan is making airplane noises. Your soul has left the chat.

Excel: It’s not just a tool, it’s a lifestyle disease.

Welcome to the Gridlock

Some people get lost in the woods. I get lost in column AE.
You haven’t known true panic until you’ve accidentally deleted a cell that was quietly powering seventeen other sheets. Now your quarterly report looks like abstract art and the CFO wants to “hop on a quick call.”

“Where’s the dashboard?”
“It was in tab 6, but then I renamed it and now it’s gone.”
“Did you back it up?”
“Haha.”

Millennials: the generation that killed mayonnaise, but can’t kill Excel.

We were promised AI assistants, automated everything, and sexy dashboards that “just work.” But instead, we’re reverse-engineering the logic behind a SUMIFS function written in 2013 by someone who no longer works here. He was a legend. His name was Dave. Nobody knows how his formulas work.

Common Symptoms of Spreadsheet Burnout:

Typing “=IFERROR(” like a trauma response
Trying to explain to your boss why 57% is a good conversion rate when your chart says “DIV/0!”
Living in fear of the words “Can you make this dynamic?”
Unhinged behavior like conditional formatting just for aesthetics

Time to Leave the Spreadsheet Cult?

Look. Excel had a good run. It’s basically the Swiss Army knife of office tools — except we keep using the tiny, dangerous toothpick for everything.

Maybe it’s time to graduate to something that doesn't break every time Cheryl in Sales enters a space in the wrong cell. Like a Decision Rules Management System (DRMS). Because building your entire workflow in Excel is like building a house out of spaghetti: possible, but horrifying.

As one recent analysis put it, Excel is simply outdated for the demands of today’s fast-moving businesses.

What’s Next?

You don’t have to quit Excel cold turkey. Start small:

Use a DRMS for actual decision logic
Link it back to Excel if you must, we won’t judge (okay, we will a little)
Stop naming your files “final_final_v2_updated_March_revised_FINAL.xlsx”

Just... set yourself free. Step away from the grid. Touch grass. Rejoin society.

Conclusion

Excel had a good run. But with studies showing nearly 88% of spreadsheets contain errors, it’s hard to argue it should still power your business-critical decisions.

Excel will always be there for you — like a toxic ex who still knows your Wi-Fi password. But maybe, just maybe, you deserve better.