Lurking after working...

[adshah]

Hi all!

So confession - I work around 70 hours a week, and for the past two weeks I've been lurking around these forums/sites/blogs. It made me feel dirty. So now I'm introducing myself and (hopefully) becoming a part of what I believe is an intelligent, and mature community (yes - brown nosing). But in all seriousness - props to all of you for creating an epic community.

So on to me - right? I've worked at 20+ positions in my life (25 years). And I hope to get a start at a life that's... "relaxed" - financially and agenda wise. No - I'm not sure what niche I want, or what kind of revenue I'd be interested in. I do know that I'm a (industrial/graphic) designer at heart, with a business mindset, and a BBA in Accounting. (Design + Excel = I make sick spreadsheets.)

Anyway - where was I going? (I'm assuming that bit of fluff is okay...) I'd like to pretty much absorb as much knowledge as I can in the next few months, and then make my first "internet business" purchase. I might even be taking a forced vacation in March - which I would probably spend right here with you folks.

I feel a little verbose. Oh - I'll forewarn you all - I abuse dashes, and I never paid attention when it came to punctuation and sentence structure, so you might notice that I have run on sentences, and lack in the grammar department.

Okay. Fin.

[benitez17]

Welcome to the site. Graphic design experience is very useful in this field.

Do you enjoy your current work? Why are you putting in all of those hours?

[adshah]

I'm a gas accounting analyst for business development group, which is a part of a large oil and gas company. I enjoy the financial reporting side of it (mostly because I the "running a business" feel - but I also do a lot of receivables/payables (small group means you wear multiple hats) - and that's a giant pain.

I put in the hours because I have a strong philosophy about work ethic and "owning your work". So if it has my name on it, or it's associated with me, people know that it's the best work product I can create.

In all honesty - the accounting degree was a means to an end. I saw it as a viable way to learn how a business works, from end to end. And now that I'm gaining that experience, I'll be able to put it to work. I've always had a dream of running my own company!

Do you have a full time job?

[grynge]

Excel = I make sick spreadsheets.

I still have around 10 companies that get me to edit the spreadsheets I made for them 10-15 years ago. I found if you made an excellent spreadsheet they kept coming back. I know a couple of people who run excel websites and live quite comfortably off them.

[adshah]

I know a couple of people who run excel websites and live quite comfortably off them.

If I could find an established site with some traffic, I'd be extremely interested in building it up to a behemoth Excel Tutorial site - to compete with Mr.Excel and Ozgrid.

You're so right though, if you can create a quality work product, people will never stop asking for support/customization/automation. Do you have a favorite excel function? My favorites right now are some of the simplest: Index, Match, & Concatenate!

[hooperman]

Welcome to the forum

So confession - I work around 70 hours a week, and for the past two weeks I've been lurking around these forums/sites/blogs.

How on earth do you find time for forums when you work so many hours!? That's a lot of hours...

[grynge]

If I could find an established site with some traffic, I'd be extremely interested in building it up to a behemoth Excel Tutorial site - to compete with Mr.Excel and Ozgrid.

You're so right though, if you can create a quality work product, people will never stop asking for support/customization/automation. Do you have a favorite excel function? My favorites right now are some of the simplest: Index, Match, & Concatenate!

I met dave hawley (ozgrid) through another forum I was a mod on. He has done an amazing job building up a quality resource. Most of my work was with index/array/match for quoting purposes in the building industry. Making it simple to quote jobs. I wouldn't say that what I did was overly complicated but it saved the companies many hours of work. Now I get asked to convert them to php/mysql for their websites.

[Clinton]

adshah, welcome to experienced-people.net

I have no clue with spreadsheets. Always meant to learn but never got around to it so respect for those who know what they're doing with spreadsheets!

I have a page on my site with a collection of spreadsheets useful in the website buying/selling arena. I'm always open to more suggestions for spreadsheets that could be of use to buyers and sellers of websites. If anybody reading this can come up with an idea for a useful spreadsheet I'm happy to make a small payment to commission such work and I'd make it available for free at the above link.

[benitez17]

I'm a gas accounting analyst for business development group, which is a part of a large oil and gas company. I enjoy the financial reporting side of it (mostly because I the "running a business" feel - but I also do a lot of receivables/payables (small group means you wear multiple hats) - and that's a giant pain.

I put in the hours because I have a strong philosophy about work ethic and "owning your work". So if it has my name on it, or it's associated with me, people know that it's the best work product I can create.

In all honesty - the accounting degree was a means to an end. I saw it as a viable way to learn how a business works, from end to end. And now that I'm gaining that experience, I'll be able to put it to work. I've always had a dream of running my own company!

Do you have a full time job?

I do have a full time job. I hope to own my own company someday as well.

[adshah]

How on earth do you find time for forums when you work so many hours!?

Late nights, Dr. Pepper, and the drive to never work like this again.

I'm happy to make a small payment to commission such work and I'd make it available for free at the above link.

I briefly looked at those - I'll take another look and see if there's anything I can add!