09 August 2007

Data Entry Drinking Game

I think the suckiest part of research is that after countless hours in the field and the lab collecting data, you're still not done. You have to do data entry. I know a lot of people who get their assistants to do it for them. I'm a good boss and have never done that. During a recent frenzy of data entry, I paused to come up with a Data Entry Drinking Game. If you don't want to get drunk, you should probably substitute in a "sip" for each "drink." If I was actually following this (and drinking in my office) I'd be sloshed by 10am. This would also work with candy. Or cookies.

DATA ENTRY DRINKING GAME

1 drink…

When you mistype a formula and don’t catch it
Every time you ctrl-c when you mean to ctrl-v
When you can’t read what you (or your assistant) wrote
Every time you stop data entry to check your email, or browse the web
When you realize that you’ve entered one number of the 7-digit UTM coordinates incorrectly

2 drinks…

Every time Excel sends you to the bottom of the spreadsheet for seemingly no reason

3 drinks…

If you have to go back to the original sample to check something that doesn’t “seem right”
Every time you 'update' files in Access, but for some reason they don't update and you have to do it all over again when you realize it two weeks later.

1 comment:

Annie said...

I'd be impressed if I made it to 10am playing that game... cookies are no better I would be obese within a week! My data entry is mostly done yipeee! But that means the endless modelling is to start I think I may want the data entry back after a few days of that