Excel / Word usage

[Cloggie]

I live and work almost 15 years in Thailand and I have never seen staff or a company that uses Excel / Word VBA or templates.

I worked for a transport company where the clerk was updating sheets on a monthly base - it took her two days of work.

Somebody wrote her a macro and now it took her only 5 minutes!

Even simple formulas are unknown, they use Excel and do the calculation with ..................a calculator!

Templates for Word, unknown - they format the same letter over and over and over again.

What is your opinion / experience - are they not interested??

[WhizBang]

Products of the Thai educational system.

[richardt1808]

Hi,

I have also lived in Thailand for more than 15 years. I work in a large Thai multi-national company and there are several people in our Finance department who are really good with formulas and linking data from multiple excel sheets. With regards to actual macro programming, I thought I was the only one in the country who could do that - but I now know that, including you, there are at least two of us !

Advanced Excel is not something I have seen taught anywhere here and I think that the biggest reason is probably because Thai finance people generally don't speak English very well, so doing a little self-teaching via Excel forums is beyond their level of capability. It also boils down to the way most Thais are taught. Thai education focuses on 'rote memorization' ie. a learning process that involves repeating information until it's remembered verbatim. This means that Thai students are often brilliant at recalling lists of facts or reciting complex theories which have already been taught to them. However, they are often NOT taught how to think for themselves and come up with unique and untried solutions to problems. It is very unusual to find people who can 'think out of the box'. I am generalizing here, but I'm sure you get the point.

I have no complaints about this though, as I love the fact that many of my colleagues sit in absolute awe at my ability to complete tasks in a matter of minutes that normally would take them days to do; or how my team of workers are continually able to come up with new and better ways of solving simple problems that they simply haven't taken the time to think through in a logical fashion. It is skills like these that help to make us indispensable and we should enjoy the fact that most others don't have them.

[impulse]

You guys are asking the wrong question.

We have a lot of Thai employees that are wizards at spreadsheets and databases.

I'd be asking why they don't (won't?) work for your company.

[OJAS]

My Thai wife is, indeed, mystified by the Excel spreadsheet which I have prepared to keep track of my her future spending requirements.

Long may it remain that way!

[timbothaivisa]

Hi,

I have also lived in Thailand for more than 15 years. I work in a large Thai multi-national company and there are several people in our Finance department who are really good with formulas and linking data from multiple excel sheets. With regards to actual macro programming, I thought I was the only one in the country who could do that - but I now know that, including you, there are at least two of us !

Advanced Excel is not something I have seen taught anywhere here and I think that the biggest reason is probably because Thai finance people generally don't speak English very well, so doing a little self-teaching via Excel forums is beyond their level of capability. It also boils down to the way most Thais are taught. Thai education focuses on 'rote memorization' ie. a learning process that involves repeating information until it's remembered verbatim. This means that Thai students are often brilliant at recalling lists of facts or reciting complex theories which have already been taught to them. However, they are often NOT taught how to think for themselves and come up with unique and untried solutions to problems. It is very unusual to find people who can 'think out of the box'. I am generalizing here, but I'm sure you get the point.

I have no complaints about this though, as I love the fact that many of my colleagues sit in absolute awe at my ability to complete tasks in a matter of minutes that normally would take them days to do; or how my team of workers are continually able to come up with new and better ways of solving simple problems that they simply haven't taken the time to think through in a logical fashion. It is skills like these that help to make us indispensable and we should enjoy the fact that most others don't have them.

While you guys were living here, I was working in London at the cutting edge of some big-name financial companies, speacialising in exactly this type of work. Since arriving in LOS, I've found it hard to drive interest in those skills and what they can achieve for almost any company of any size - people (of all nationalities) just don't get it.

In defence of Thai professionals, I did do a 2-day training course for a decent-sized petro-chemical consulting company a while ago, for some 12 fairly motivated analysts. I suspect from the way the course played out, that they were expecting a boring session which would deliver nothing of real interest. The course director confided in me that most people attending courses in Thailand, view them as a nice break from the routine and not much else, but once we got into some real VBA coding, demonstrating some of the time-saving & effort-leveraging potential, they couldn't get enough.

My research has also thrown up quite a number of trainging companies around Bangkok, for people of all levels. However, without the drive and critical-thinking needed to fashion effective tools out of the technology, much of it probably goes unused & forgotten.

The other thing to consider, is the beureaucratic philosophy that people are brought up into: do as little as possible in order to reduce expectations, and keep your job & prospects safe, and everyone else will do the same. Rock the boat, and you will be squeezed out by those who play the game by the unspoken rules.

Needless to say, if anyone is lookig for a specialist in this area of IT, please get in touch!

[Cloggie]

>>> I thought I was the only one in the country who could do that - but I now know that, including you, there are at least two of us !

Edited December 9, 2015 by Cloggie