excel geeks r us: the sequel

So back in October, I put my nose in some business at work that got me some fun geek time playing on excel and creating some new budget spreadsheet templates with fancy formulas and pivot tables that are now being used by every academic department at my university (yay me!). Ever since, I've been playing an internal war game of "take on a new project/don't volunteer for more work".

My own big personal whine about my employer is that there aren't training opportunities for staff. This makes me crazy! I've researched about how this is a problem, written reports about how this is a problem, and come up with ideas about how to create trainings, and sat by and waited for somebody else to do the work of creating training opportunities. The big work retreat a few weeks ago I got inspired to infiltrate, and I've been thinking about ways I can use my skills, knowledge, and abilities to train others at my workplace.

Somehow, my thinking about it is turning into an actual manifestation. I was out of the blue contacted by one of my fellow department administrative heads this week to ask for help with excel for a budget thing that is due next week. Then I emailed out to the group of administrative department heads at work that I was available to come help, and someone suggested I do a group training...the thing has suddenly snowballed and today I talked to HR about my ideas, and they want me to create course descriptions and course syllabi and training materials! And they want to have it all together by the end of next week so we can start having workshops in 2 weeks! This is SO cool! When I left HR today, I was just all a-buzz and went to the nearest geek I could find to gush all about my happy, happy news. So Dave in IT got an earful :) I'm pretty sure I jumped up and down in the IT trailer. All because I get to show some people at work how to do some stuff that I know how to do that will hopefully make their work-lives easier.

I'm such a geek, and I'm so excited that I get to do this. I feel so lucky, and so blessed, and for the first time in a long time feel like me again...like I'm waking up from a hazy dream, or I've got new contact lenses or something...everything seems less fuzzy. So here I am. I am infiltrating. I am going to be teaching again, even if it is only a little bit. I am excited and nervous and full of ideas.

Maybe it won't be the summer of cheese...maybe it will be the summer of geek!