Just whining

This will be a petty post because I feel like whining.

It seems to me that every fall I suddenly get a lot of unplanned demands on my time - things I have to do that others impose - and this week had a couple of days where I had to do other things so I was unproductive.

On top of that, the other things I did work on were unsuccessful. Last week I did a painting and it was not worth posting. This week I tried to do a drawing that still was not successful. And then at work. Some of the problems I'm trying to solve are not solving. Last week I tried to work on a data table analysis for an outlier situation but I ran into problems on trying to set up the data table. I now realize why I did not use data tables much. The kinds of problems that I was solving were not simple formulas but formulas on top of formulas (if that makes sense). I think I figured out a way but I will have to make up a scenario because I cannot use the work problem (don't want to show the formulas we're using, although I suspect everyone else is using the same formulas - they should anyway). Maybe this weekend I can come up with a fake problem.

Then there is another problem that I've been stuck on for weeks. It's a guided data checking for ACA. There are so many date filtering combinations (combination of hire and term dates) to be done to check on the coding results (making sure the dates make sense and that the codes relate to the dates) that I came up with over 100 date filter combinations just for checking the code 1 series (ACA speak - those who do the ACA will know what that means). I got that working but then I needed to do filter combinations for the effective date of medical enrollment for those who chose to enroll. I came up with 28 more potential date combinations. But not all of the combinations occurs so there were instances of when there were no filtered items for verification. So I tried to do another version where if the date filter combination led to no filtered items, skip it and go on to the next filter combination. The problem with that second version was that the macro would run for so long that I could take a nap (I am exaggerating but not much). So I'm on the third version of the macro to try to shorten the time but still skip date combinations that do not exist in the current year's data. And I have just been running into problem after problem.

Because I keep getting inundated with outside demands, I have a feeling that from now until end of January I will be unproductive. Postings will be on the sparse side.