It's a party...

Who loves a spreadsheet?

Not the kind which you see at the accountants (let's not go down that route - I've just about recovered after Thursday afternoon), or on the screensaver of an statistician.  No, the spreadsheet I am talking about is the one you do when you have to pre-order the food for the Office Christmas Party...

Yes, it's that time of year again.  Mrs S gets the job of securing the venue for the annual Binland Christmas bash.  Once booked, she sends everyone the menu with instructions to send choices to me so that I can do the spreadsheet.  The idea of pre-ordering is a great one because the food comes out quickly, leaving the participants more time to drink bad wine and dance to equally out of date music.  You also have the answers should someone peak too soon and deny all knowledge of ordering the Roast Turkey.

I had saved the spreadsheet from last year.  There were a couple of tweaks to be made (some people leave, some people start), and all I had to do was put the information in and voila!

But there were issues...

1. I wanted to put a festive picture in this year - this took twenty minutes (don't tell my boss) to find the 'right' picture.  What is very sad is that Mrs S and I are probably the only ones who will care as we are surrounded by Scrooges, forever putting the brakes on our festive cheer..

2. Putting my dinner choices in, Strawberry Shortbread Panna Cotta did not fit in the Pudding column, and spread itself over two lines.  This would not do, so I narrowed the Starter and Main columns to accommodate this rather wordy pudding.

3. Now the Main column was narrower, Beef with Redcurrants and Brandy no longer fitted on one line.  I attempted swapping the 'and' for an '&' but this wasn't enough, so I renamed the Strawberry Shortbread Panna Cotta as merely Panna Cotta, and stretched the Main column so that the Beef meal(with an '&') now fitted.

4. I then went back to the abbreviated Panna Cotta pudding, and played with font sizes to see whether I could fit the whole description on.  This would have worked if the restaurant were using a telescope, but as it's quite unlikely that the landlord of the pub in question would have one, I increased the font size again.

5.  I then decided to change the orientation from portrait to landscape, giving me tons of column room for full descriptions and a larger font - brilliant!  Unfortunately, the Depot Manager and I dropped off the end of the page onto a new sheet which almost ruined my day, so it was back to the original format.

6.  I finally reached a stage where I was happy with it, and then Mr G from the Transport Office started messing with my brain.

'Are we having two or three courses?'

'We're having all three'.

Can I have Roast Turkey followed by Chocolate Roulade please'.

'That's just two courses though'.

'I know.  Can I have a bowl of pigs in blankets instead?'

'But they're not on the set menu'.

'I know, but it's an extra, so I could have it instead of a starter'.

'So you want the bowl of pigs as a starter?'

'No.  I want them to come with my Turkey'.

At this moment, I went into free fall.  Not only did I have an empty space in my spreadsheet where a starter should be, but he wanted me to double up his main so that it read Roast Turkey plus an additional bowl of Pigs and Blankets.

I'm going to need a bigger piece of paper...