As the years go by

My MS Office newsletter today: Have you ever had an Excel workbook with several, perhaps even dozens, of worksheets that you wanted to sort alphabetically? Oh, yes, all the time! Hmph. That's all well and good and I'm sure it really does apply to someone, but they never tackle the big issues. Like why the numbers in Word's numbered lists sometimes go crazy. That drives me mad.

I think I've got too many years in my life. I have to keep track of the calendar year (January - December), the financial year (July - June), the fringe benefits year (April - March), the Victorian medical training year (starting on the first Monday in February) and the South Australian medical training year (starting on the first Wednesday in February*). One of our funding bodies runs the medical training according the February to January year, the finances according to the July to June financial year and the reporting on a November to October basis. I'd like a well-chosen word with the person who thought of that.



* The first year I did this job, I asked someone in South Australia when the medical training year started and she gave me a date. "That's a Wednesday," I told her.

"The week always starts on Wednesday," she said. She didn't actually add "you stupid Victorian" but it was definitely implied.