Re: gnumeric filter for >>>Excel<<<<

[Mark Gilbert <mg_abimail yahoo com>]

On Wed, 2004-07-07 at 23:19, Wayne Schuller wrote:
> The strangest thing is this strange request is going to become more and
> more commonplace in the next few years.

More than you know (-:  Can't say much about it right now, but when you
see it you'll understand.  More than you know (-:

> As soon as you have a work environment where the majority of people
> are using gnumeric or OO formats, they will start forgetting to save
> in the MS Format to please the minority.

(nothing material below, just amusing commentary)
Actually, a surprising and pleasant number of my odd jobs and contracts
have already landed me in such areas (including colleges within
universities, departments within companies, sometimes even the bulk of
the institutions themselves).
Assorted memories, for the bored and the entertained:
It really is refreshing to see actuaries and analysts muttering things
about "<censored> micro<censored>" whilst redoing their work in
gnumeric, having been introduced the hard way to the fact that <product
censored> isn't always The Source Of Statistical Truth that it thinks it
is.
However, that doesn't quite stand up to seeing the look on his face of
an expensive-suit-wearing, hair-gel-overusing, just-graduated consultant
who thinks he's The Man and who's being paid one or two hundred bucks an
hour to come up with some internal statistics preceeding an
institutional restructuring, when he gets told by the client, "I'm
sorry, you did these calculations in what?  Yeah, that's not
acceptable.  It's accuracy is not something we would like to bet our
assets on.  If you need help, one of the boys in the mail room can show
you how to use gnumeric, which is the preferred application here." 
That's what I call an "education". (-:
Then, of course, there's the time I got asked to return to an old job
site.  I had previously (as an outside consultant) helped convert a
large department from almost entirely <certain product censored> to
Linux, which implied of course replacing <product censored> with
gnumeric.  Anyway, I had no idea why I was being called back.  They
didn't sound happy.  When I got there, there was a channel of angry
looking people that I had to pass through with them staring at me and
tapping their feet, etc.  As you can imagine, I was pretty darn
nervous.  So what had gone so wrong?

I'd missed a box (-:


Best regards
-MG