#flattenthecurve Episode 14

WFH Day 11 of y

I've stuck with the 'y' instead of the 'x'. For now.


A Time to Cherish

I'd like to retell to you all a special moment that I was fortunate to share today with my daughter. Eva comes in for quite a lot of stick from me (and quite rightly, to be fair, she is a gobby madam) but today we had a shared daddy-daughter experience that will live with us both forever.

It was one of those landmark moments you look forward to in life. That you dream about sharing, that you plan carefully, that you hope they'll understand the significance of, that will teach them a little more about yourself and that they will remember forever.

Time spent together in future will reminisce of the moment, and how it shaped their minds, their careers, their lives.

Yes, today Eva and I constructed our first joint spreadsheet.

I was a little apprehensive beforehand, what if she mocked my raison d'etre? What if she didn't recognise the beauty of the rows and the columns, or the majesty of a pastel shaded centre aligned tabular presentation of key data? My heart was pounding as I opened the laptop, but I needed have worried.

"Daddy" she gasped, "look at all those boxes."
"They, my pet" I replied "are called cells."
"Cells" she repeated, whispering reverentially, her eyes wide with awe.

But, ladies and gentlemen, things got better from there. Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V to copy and paste data was like music to her ears. Inserting a row into our table to correct a mistake Daddy made (silly Daddy) was a genuine delight to her.

And I saved the best for last. With a flourish of mouse clicks, I magicked up a line chart. She was rendered speechless. Momentarily.

"Urgh" grumbled Henry, wandering past "are you'd still on with that boring computer stuff. Urff."

I paused to consider an appropriately caustic response, but Eva stepped into the breach "it is not boring Henry!" she proudly declared.

"No" I smiled "it is Excel-ent". The joke fell on deaf ears, but I enjoyed it.

I'm thinking of showing her a pivot table tomorrow. Too much too soon, perhaps?