My first boss told me I was 'overthinking the reports' and it stuck with me

I used to spend hours making these detailed spreadsheets with color coding and extra columns nobody asked for. My manager at that marketing firm in Cleveland finally said 'Dan, just give me the numbers I need, not a novel.' It hit me that I was wasting time on stuff that didn't matter to the people reading it. Now I keep my work reports short and focused on the key points, and I actually finish them in half the time. Anyone else had a boss give you feedback that made your whole approach click?

3 comments

3 Comments

daniel_cooper345d ago

Wait hold on. You were COLOR CODING your spreadsheets for a marketing job? I can't get past that. Like what color was the 'we're losing money' alert supposed to be?

xena5825d ago

The "losing money" alert was supposed to be a deep maroon, like dried blood, which honestly feels pretty on the nose now that I say it out loud. But here's the thing - I had a whole system where green meant stable, yellow meant caution, and blue was for wins, but then my boss walked by one day and asked why the "we're profitable" cell was the same green as the "we're just breaking even" cell, and I had to explain that there were like seven different shades of green in between. It got to the point where I had a laminated card taped to my monitor with RGB codes so I wouldn't mix up "mint" (good) with "forest" (great) or "lime" (okay but not great). Honestly, the whole thing just shows how marketing loves to make things look pretty even when the numbers are screaming for help.

williamhenderson4d ago

Lol @xena582 that laminated RGB cheat sheet is the most over-engineered thing I've ever heard of, but I kinda respect it. Sounds like your boss woulda been happier with a simple red/green stoplight system than a whole Pantone catalog of financial anxiety.