
Spreadsheet Horror Stories - tosh
http://www.eusprig.org/horror-stories.htm
======
blackbrokkoli
Great examples of the fallacy Don Norman points out in "The design of everyday
things":

Assigning "human error" and declaring the analysis done, not considering
design may be at fault.

Just Ctrl+F the keywords, the exact phrase is used three times and paraphrased
a dozen time more. My favorite is “It was basically human error… there’s
nothing wrong with our accounting systems”. If your spreadsheet has billion-
dollar impact, why is there no 4-eyes-principle? Why do humans even have a
hand in data transfer? No sanity checks? No automation? Stop blaming the user!

~~~
xivzgrev
This. I read maybe half a dozen of the stories and just kept thinking “they
don’t have great quality control measures in place”. Like you said four eyes
principle.

------
jkaptur
I've thought a lot about this. It's certainly easy to dunk on spreadsheets
being error-prone (and even easier to dunk on VBA!). It's a decades-long
running joke:
[https://dilbert.com/strip/2007-08-08](https://dilbert.com/strip/2007-08-08)

But at a higher level, what strikes me is that spreadsheets don't get checked
if they tell you what you want to hear. These stories are generally about
afflicting the afflicted (Reinhart and Rogoff) and banks and traders taking on
too much global risk in pursuit of local reward (the London Whale).

This is a problem with the intersection of software and society in general,
and I don't have an answer.

~~~
teddyh
> _But at a higher level, what strikes me is that spreadsheets don 't get
> checked if they tell you what you want to hear._

[https://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-07](https://dilbert.com/strip/2016-01-07)

Further:
[https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=spreadsheet](https://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=spreadsheet)

------
alexhutcheson
"There are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the
ones nobody uses."[1] That applies to spreadsheets as well as to C++.

[1] [http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#really-say-
that](http://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#really-say-that)

------
dredmorbius
Ray Panko of the University of Hawaii has studied the problem (and prevalence)
of spreadsheet errors for decades:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ray_Panko](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ray_Panko)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070617035246/http://panko.shid...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070617035246/http://panko.shidler.hawaii.edu/index.htm)

------
andrewstuart
Back in 1987 I worked at a company that used Microsoft Multiplan, which was an
early spreadsheet program.

It did not have a "sure you want to exit?" nor any form of intelligent saving.

One of the guys worked on a spreadsheet all night without saving it along the
way and hit exit, and it did.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplan)

------
Thorrez
One somewhat spreadsheet-related error I experienced firsthand was when most
people in the class I was in got the wrong grade for the final. The professor
had ordered the students alphabetically in a spreadsheet, then copied their
grades from there to the website. But one student had a name with a non-ascii
character, and the spreadsheet and the website disagreed on on the
alphabetical ordering in that case, so most students got the grade of the
person alphabetically next to them.

------
Ididntdothis
It seems a lot of these come down to the fact that people don’t do a final
sanity check. I have seen it quite a few times where people threw out numbers
in meetings that simply didn’t make sense but weren’t challenged.

~~~
denster
We've seen this in customer deployments as well [1], that's why we always
recommend UIs linked to a spreadsheet that help with verification &
correctness of the underlying spreadsheet logic.

[1] Implementations of MintData spreadsheets for internal tooling & line of
business applications.

[https://mintdata.com](https://mintdata.com)

------
thedudeabides5
Say what you will about errors in spreadsheets but an underappreciated benefit
is that they _enable_ this kind of post-hoc analysis/error checking.

The transparency of 'it's all in this workbook and you can trace it yourself'
means finding mistakes (and there are always going to be mistakes) and finding
the logic behind the conclusions (because there is always going to be debate
about methodology and cleaning practices) is a million times easier than if
the analysis was done in code.

It may be the case that you get more errors per hour in a spreadsheet than in
code, but I'd bet 5:1 that errors in code based systems persist much longer,
due to the lack of transparency in what the machine is thinking.

~~~
bobbylarrybobby
How is a spreadsheet easier to audit than a codebase?

~~~
mxschumacher
All data states and all logic are in one file

~~~
cpeterso
But spreadsheet logic is buried unseen in cells and spreadsheets don't have
good version control for reviewing new changes and auditing change history.

~~~
paulfitz
Grist spreadsheets have a page where you can review all formulas as code
[https://support.getgrist.com/formulas/#code-
viewer](https://support.getgrist.com/formulas/#code-viewer) \- I find this
handy when figuring out someone else's spreadsheet, or my own once I've
forgotten how they work, and would love to see this become a standard
spreadsheet feature (disclosure: I work on Grist)

~~~
heavenlyblue
But I can review my code as code?

------
IAmEveryone
While I enjoy snarking at amateurs‘ mistakes as much as anybody, I believe
it’s an overlooked fact that nothing has been as successful in getting non-
programmers to program, and in getting the benefits of programming out there,
as spreadsheets have.

Excel gets almost as much grieve as PowerPoint does. But I’ve met 80-year old
booksellers running their own demand-forecasting spreadsheets, which were more
sophisticated and accurate than quite a few „business intelligence“ portals
I’ve seen over the years. And isn’t that awesome?

~~~
hef19898
It's incredible what you can achieve with spreadsheets. Done well these
spreadsheets are also a perfect basis for further digitalisation, simply
because the underlying process is running smoothly.

------
amadeuspzs
Not that the authors would claim any differently, but I am going to go out on
a limb and state that RDBMS Horror Stories are more frequent, and with higher
overall impact.

Purely from a SQLi point of view we have: [https://codecurmudgeon.com/wp/sql-
injection-hall-of-shame/](https://codecurmudgeon.com/wp/sql-injection-hall-of-
shame/)

~~~
commandlinefan
Or programming in general horror stories:
[http://thedailywtf.com/](http://thedailywtf.com/)

------
nerpderp82
> In a paper, 'Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A
> Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff,' Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert
> Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst criticise a 2010 paper by
> Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, 'Growth in a Time of
> Debt.' They find three main issues: First, Reinhart and Rogoff selectively
> exclude years of high debt and average growth. Second, they use a debatable
> method to weight the countries. Third, there also appears to be a coding
> error that excludes high-debt and average-growth countries. All three bias
> in favor of their result, and without them you don't get their controversial
> result."

This one is kinda buried in the list. This is what motivated the harsh
austerity measures in Greece. So an entire country was punished because of a
bug in a spreadsheet.

[http://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-
how-...](http://theconversation.com/the-reinhart-rogoff-error-or-how-not-to-
excel-at-economics-13646)

[https://prospect.org/culture/books/the-crash-of-austerity-
ec...](https://prospect.org/culture/books/the-crash-of-austerity-economics/)

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-
interactive/2015/apr...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/ng-
interactive/2015/apr/29/the-austerity-delusion)

[https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/17/how-
mic...](https://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/04/17/how-microsoft-
excel-tanked-the-global-economy)

[http://www.cc.com/video-clips/dcyvro/the-colbert-report-
aust...](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/dcyvro/the-colbert-report-austerity-s-
spreadsheet-error)

interview with herndon [http://www.cc.com/video-clips/kbgnf0/the-colbert-
report-aust...](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/kbgnf0/the-colbert-report-
austerity-s-spreadsheet-error---thomas-herndon)

~~~
Mvandenbergh
>This one is kinda buried in the list. This is what motivated the harsh
austerity measures in Greece. So an entire country was punished because of a
bug in a spreadsheet.

That isn't true. This paper indicated that moderately high levels of public
debt constrained economic growth. As you have pointed out, the paper was
riddled with errors and the evidence that moderately high levels of public
debt slow economic growth isn't really there.

What happened in Greece is quite different. Lenders lost confidence in the
Greek government's ability to repay their debt. Partially because there was
re-statement of public debt that increased the debt level by 11% overnight.

What the Greek government did after that to get out from under this was to cut
spending (austerity). Economists have always been sceptical that this would
work since during a recession is the very worst time to cut spending since it
reduces cumulative demand at a time when it is already down.

Indeed it did not work as we all know, but Eurozone lenders were not willing
to allow a partial default which is what should have happened and being in the
Euro means that there is no possibility for a devaluation.

~~~
bobcostas55
Greece consistently ran huge deficits during the crisis. They had a huge debt
write-off in 2012 and still ended up with 180% debt/gdp, that doesn't happen
if your spending policy is austere.

[https://3gp11q1ujq964apmpt3s9cda-wpengine.netdna-
ssl.com/wp-...](https://3gp11q1ujq964apmpt3s9cda-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/07/Greek-Government-Budget-Deficit_2.png)

~~~
pjc50
Austerity is not measured in Euros but in the human casualties of the policy.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-
debt_crisis#S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_government-
debt_crisis#Social_effects)

------
joshwa
Worth mentioning Exce-Lint, an Excel add-in that automatically finds formula
errors in spreadsheets.

[https://plasma-umass.org/ExceLint-addin/](https://plasma-umass.org/ExceLint-
addin/)

------
_bxg1
I wonder if "spreadsheet unit tests" are/should be a thing.

~~~
denster
They are a thing [1]. We use MintData spreadsheets for a large part of our
regression test suite that tests MintData itself.

A bit meta, but yes, spreadsheets can definitely be used for the equivalent of
what "unit tests" are in code.

Interestingly, we also have "integration tests" in our spreadsheets, but this
has more to do with the fact that MintData spreadsheets have native API
calling ability, so we can test with external services end-to-end.

[1] MintData, [https://mintdata.com](https://mintdata.com)

~~~
iFire
Is there an intro plan that isn't $95 / month? I want to pay money for this,
but there are alternatives at that pricing level.

Actually even paying $1140 ($95 * 12 months) for the on-premise version is
better.

~~~
iFire
I had a lot of insights generated from this opensource program.

[https://medium.com/guesstimate-blog/introducing-
guesstimate-...](https://medium.com/guesstimate-blog/introducing-guesstimate-
a-spreadsheet-for-things-that-aren-t-certain-2fa54aa9340#.um4q5txph)

[https://github.com/getguesstimate/guesstimate-
app](https://github.com/getguesstimate/guesstimate-app)

------
xycodex
I wonder how those mistakes were caught - I guess it is hard for them to track
since they seem to rely on news reports.

If it is usually some audit firm, seems like it is working somewhat as
intended, at least in the business related ones. - in other cases like
research it might be important enough to hire an audit firm to verify your
spreadsheet model/data provenance.

------
aj7
Where’s he spreadsheet error that underlies the greatest scam of our time,
supply side economics? I’ve heard of it, and would love to see it analyzed.

------
qubex
Released in 2018, so needs the relevant tag (I think).

~~~
dang
They've been doing this for many years, and I think it's an ongoing effort.

