Spreadsheet Superhero

"Do you know the most efficient superhero today, in terms of lives saved per dollar? ...It's Speedsheet, who can analyze spreadsheets at speeds far beyond those of mortal men. Honestly, I'm not even sure she's really super. She might just be an incredibly boring person." Every skill, sufficiently practiced, becomes a superpower. And don't worry that it will make you boring: having an expert-level skill is never boring.

SMBC comic #3840, script below
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (SMBC) by Zach Weinersmith

I was reminded of the SMBC comic "Super-Efficient" (August 25, 2015) recently. It shows a prospective superhero interviewing with Superman. Superman opens with, "Listen kid, you don't want to be a superhero." As he explains,

Superman: "Do you know the most efficient superhero today, in terms of lives saved per dollar?

Prospective superhero: "...Is it Batman?"

Superman: "It's Speedsheet, who can analyze spreadsheets at speeds far beyond those of mortal men. Honestly, I'm not even sure she's really super. She might just be an incredibly boring person."

This comic always amuses me because it plays to my strengths: a spreadsheet expert, a statistics nerd, and a user of self-deprecating humor. Sometimes using spreadsheets "at speeds far beyond mortal men" is just knowing a few keyboard shortcuts, like when I started amazing people because I used CTRL + arrow to get to the beginning / end of a row quickly, often paired with a quick copy/paste to expand a set of formulas further. I try to design my formulas to be flexible enough to handle that.

Like all skills, the key to spreadsheets is practice. That practice builds on itself: as you get better with the tool, you can use it for more things and learn more. Eventually, the spreadsheet becomes your go-to tool (for good and for bad). For a list of the various ways that I've contorted Excel and Google Sheets to do my bidding, these tags should bring them all up:

SMBC comic #3840, script below
Bonus panel! Portrait of Speedsheet

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