Sign up with GoogleThe following post might contain some factual lies to protect the innocent:
We have a service provider that furnishes us with an analytical report every so often. They get regular updates of our xlsx database and use this to point out trends and then react based on our requirements etc before finally selling the database to the highest bidder.
The report includes a fairly verbose output of the processes they follow to get to the final result. This includes pointing out that e.g. 200 field values were valid while 800 were "invalid" for the specific task(s) at hand.
On a particular boring day early in the year the Boss worked through the report, blew a few gaskets and fired off an email to everyone about how unacceptable it was that we had so many records with "invalid" field values and how we will have to sit down and form a committee to address this issue as urgently as possible as the database is the bread and butter of the business.
I took to his office to explain what they meant with "invalid" in the context of databases and the report he had in his hand. He seemed happy with the explanation that the "invalid" entries were simply clients within the database that had empty/ignored field values related to the process being run. Not all the clients have cars so some of the clients will have empty or "N/A" car_colour cell values. If the process looks up clients with pink cars it ignores/eliminates all the records where the field car_colour is not pink, showing these eliminated records as "invalid". I regarded the matter as settled.
/thread
I wish.
Got an email last night from the boss:
So my plan of action was as follows, but I have not shared it with the Boss:
1. Phone up the analytical supplier.
2. Explain the problem to them.
3. Beg them to find & replace the word "invalid" in the report with "unused" or something similar.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!
The supplier had quite a bit of a chuckle and agreed to change the wording purely to protect my sanity. Now I ask you - did I not make myself clear the first time around or something?
We have a service provider that furnishes us with an analytical report every so often. They get regular updates of our xlsx database and use this to point out trends and then react based on our requirements etc before finally selling the database to the highest bidder.
The report includes a fairly verbose output of the processes they follow to get to the final result. This includes pointing out that e.g. 200 field values were valid while 800 were "invalid" for the specific task(s) at hand.
On a particular boring day early in the year the Boss worked through the report, blew a few gaskets and fired off an email to everyone about how unacceptable it was that we had so many records with "invalid" field values and how we will have to sit down and form a committee to address this issue as urgently as possible as the database is the bread and butter of the business.
I took to his office to explain what they meant with "invalid" in the context of databases and the report he had in his hand. He seemed happy with the explanation that the "invalid" entries were simply clients within the database that had empty/ignored field values related to the process being run. Not all the clients have cars so some of the clients will have empty or "N/A" car_colour cell values. If the process looks up clients with pink cars it ignores/eliminates all the records where the field car_colour is not pink, showing these eliminated records as "invalid". I regarded the matter as settled.
/thread
I wish.
Got an email last night from the boss:
So my plan of action was as follows, but I have not shared it with the Boss:
1. Phone up the analytical supplier.
2. Explain the problem to them.
3. Beg them to find & replace the word "invalid" in the report with "unused" or something similar.
4. ???
5. PROFIT!
The supplier had quite a bit of a chuckle and agreed to change the wording purely to protect my sanity. Now I ask you - did I not make myself clear the first time around or something?
