If you have a job where you sit behind a computer a good bit of the time, you could probably make your life a whole lot easier if you would learn computer programming. I'm not saying you have to turn into some kind of computer genius, of course, but if you were to learn how to write a few little programs that would do some of the more mundane tasks for you with just the click of a button, you could free up loads of time for other stuff.
See if this sounds familiar; I have a friend that works in purchasing at a pretty successful company. Every day he has to take a spreadsheet from the previous day and compare it to another spreadsheet for the current day to determine what ordered parts have come in. He got pretty industrious and even got two computer monitors set up on his desk so that he could look at both of them and compare them side by side. But that's where the technology ends. He then takes a notepad and a pen and starts scanning the worksheet and writing stuff down. It usually takes him about 2 hours to do this. Everyday! Imagine how many mistakes he must make! Especially when you are writing down complex part numbers and quantities, and then people keep coming in and interrupting to ask a question. I can't imagine my first two hours of everyday being that mind numbing and stressful.
What my buddy does not understand is, the spreadsheet program his company uses is the most widely used program out there. In fact, the company that makes his spreadsheet program also makes the email software he uses, the database software that they use to track the warehouse inventory, and even the word processing program they use for correspondence! Heck, they even make the software that they use to do presentations to customers! I'm not going to name this software company, but unless you have been living in a soft little micro cave for last 30 years, I'm pretty sure you can figure it out. Well, this software company did a pretty handy little thing when they built their package of software to sell to the masses. They incorporated a handy little tool with it that allows any every day Joe or Joann to write programs to manipulate their software in even more ways than what they released. Shoot, they made it so versatile that you can write a program in it to do just about anything on your computer and the only way you would know it was a spreadsheet (or email, or database, etc.) program is by the icon you have to click to get it running. That is cool.
But not only is it cool, it is powerful! If my buddy were to spend a little time learning and familiarizing himself with this tool, he could easily (and I do mean easily), write a program that he could use so that when he gets to work, he could open a blank spreadsheet, click a button, and literally seconds later have today's spreadsheet compare itself with yesterday's spreadsheet and list out a detailed report on what had been received. There is two whole hours out of his day that he just reclaimed! His boss has no idea what he has done, so what can he do with that quarter of a workday he just gained back? Maybe write another program to make some other aspect of his job easier? Or add-on to his existing program so that it automatically emails the report to his boss? Remember, the same software company made the email program so it all works together by design.
If learning computer programming is something that you would like to do but think that it is too hard, or that you just wouldn't be able to understand it, then let me tell you a secret. I taught myself how to write a whole bunch of programs and the number one tool I used was the internet. That's right. I would just plunk in my query in a reputable search engine and I would get all kinds of explanations and answers. The problem is knowing what questions to ask and how to ask them. And for that you need a little bit of basic programming knowledge. I might can help you get that knowledge by introducing you to some basic programming techniques. You never know, you might just decide to completely change careers!
