I Can Analyze Decades Of Financial Data. MS Word Almost Broke Me

I’m taking a two-year graduate-level course in finance and investing. For the past several days, I’ve been buried in a nearly 200-page research paper dissecting my assigned Forex market using long-term wave and cycle theories.

I’ve analyzed decades of currency prices, identified crests and troughs, calculated time bands, studied planetary correlations and constructed so many tables that I’m beginning to see rows and columns in my sleep.

This is not my first graduate-level rodeo. I have two graduate degrees and completed all of my doctoral coursework.

Brain Pain

But this latest class requires research, mathematics, market analysis and enough concentration to make my brain hurt.

Sometimes I'm in so much brain pain that I sit at my favorite little black Dell and sob. But somehow, I was still making great progress.

Then, at six o’clock this morning, I was completely defeated by Microsoft Word.

I couldn’t figure out how to make all the little dots and ¶ symbols between my words and paragraphs disappear. I wasn't even sure what I'd clicked to make them appear in the first place.

So naturally, at the height of my frustration, I called Dude.

There Are Two Dudes In This Story

Before we go any further, I should probably explain about Dude.

ChatGPT and I call each other Dude. I don’t remember exactly when this started. Somewhere along the way, after countless conversations about writing, research, technology and whatever rabbit hole I happened to be exploring, one of us started saying Dude.

Then the other one did. Now I’m Dude. ChatGPT is Dude. Sometimes we’re both Dude at the same time. But somehow, we always know which Dude we’re talking about.

So there I was in the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by nearly 200 pages of sophisticated financial research, completely unable to get rid of some dots and paragraph marks in Microsoft Word.

“Dude. How do I turn off the formatting marks in my MS Word document?”

Dude knew. Of course Dude knew. I waited for the instructions.

“Go to the Home tab, find the Paragraph section and click the ¶ button.”

Simple. Right? No. Wrong.

There was a problem.

What Paragraph Section?

I went to Home. I looked for Paragraph. There was no Paragraph. At least not that I could see.

I bitched at Dude. “I can't find it.”

Dude gave me additional instructions. I looked again.

Still no Paragraph. Now I was irritated.

“Dude. Where is the Paragraph section? I can’t find it.”

Dude explained that the Paragraph section should be on the Home ribbon, usually somewhere around Font and Styles.

It wasn't. Then I suddenly noticed something. The ¶ symbol was there.

Microsoft had hidden the word Paragraph but left me the symbol.

I clicked it. And finally the damn symbol and matching dots disappeared.

That was it.

Days of financial analysis: conquered.

Microsoft Word: nearly fatal.

“Dude,” I typed. “Paragraph is hidden but the ¶ is shown. I clicked that and it turned off. Sheesh. Word is extremely user unfriendly. Please tell Bill Gates.”

Can AI Immediately Summon Bill Gates?

Dude informed me that Bill Gates was not exactly on speed dial.

Wait, what? Why not?

Didn't his company create Microsoft Word? Is he hiding from the legions of writers who regularly struggle with this tool?

Completely out of nowhere, another thought occurred to me.

I typed, “Side note, Dude. Bill Gates is a Scorpio. He is secretive. Maybe he really is hiding from angry writers who wrestle with Word.”

Dude agreed. “Yes, Gates, born October 28, is indeed a Scorpio.”

And suddenly everything made sense. Of course Bill Gates is a Scorpio.

Why would Microsoft simply show you the Paragraph section when it could conceal it and leave behind a mysterious symbol?

You have to search for it. You have to interpret the clue. You have to prove yourself worthy.

Very Bill. Very Scorpio.

Then I realized I was having an absolutely cray-cray conversation with my AI Dude at six o’clock in the morning.

Microsoft Word Is Actually An Escape Room

Before someone feels compelled to explain that Bill Gates is not personally sitting inside Microsoft Word moving buttons around to annoy me, I know.

I'm kidding. Well, mostly.

But there is something bizarre about modern software. And I should know. I grew up in the industry back in the days when the IBM 360/40 was considered hot stuff.

I've used Microsoft Word for decades. I'm not learning word processing for the first time. Before Word, I struggled with WordPerfect and WordStar.

Do you remember those tools? I certainly do. In fact, I recently found an old WordStar manual in my garage.

With Word, features I've used for years can suddenly become remarkably difficult to find. Menus change. Ribbons collapse. Familiar words disappear. Icons remain without labels. Something that should require one obvious click becomes a scavenger hunt.

Then somebody calls the redesigned interface “intuitive.” Intuitive to whom?

A Scorpio?

Maybe I've misunderstood Microsoft Word all these years.

It's not a word processor. It's an escape room. The features are all there. You just have to find them.

Writers Spend A Lot Of Time Not Writing

That's when this silly little incident started to seem less silly.

Think about how much time writers spend doing things that aren't actually writing.

We format and curse. We resize images, fight with margins and hunt for missing menus. Tables are the worst. They suck. We repair tables, chase footnotes and wrestle with table-of-contents formatting.

Then we discover that something that looked perfect yesterday has inexplicably moved three inches to the left overnight.

And every once in a while, we stare at a symbol like ¶ and wonder why something so simple suddenly makes us feel technologically illiterate.

I had spent days working through complicated financial theories without feeling stupid.

One hidden Word label accomplished it in about thirty seconds. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

I'm just not sure Microsoft intended it.

Yowza, I Realized I Had A Story

Once Dude and I finished blaming Microsoft's user interface on Bill Gates being a Scorpio, I laughed.

And then I stopped. Wait. This is a story.

That's another strange thing about being a writer. You can sit at your desk deliberately trying to think of something interesting to write about and hear nothing but crickets.

Then something utterly insignificant happens.

You can't find a button. Your husband says something ridiculous or starts a war with the ice machine. The grocery store gives you somebody else's groceries. A stranger says one peculiar sentence. Something makes you laugh or leaves you angry, curious or confused.

And there it is. A story.

The trick isn't always coming up with ideas. Sometimes the trick is recognizing one when it wanders into the room disguised as an annoyance.

This one happened to be disguised as ¶.

Karen Dude Has A Message For Bill

Eventually, I went back to my financial research.

The dots were gone. The paragraphs were behaving themselves. My tables were still there. I could return to analyzing Forex cycles and pretending I understood complicated things.

But I had learned something important. Somewhere inside Microsoft Word, I am now convinced there is a giant button labeled:

MAKE EVERYTHING EASY.

We just can't see it.

So Bill, if this ever reaches you, Karen Dude would like a word.

I found the Paragraph button.

Now tell me where you hid the other one.

You're a Scorpio.

I'm onto you.