It’s a couple decades back, and this pilot fish is the lucky winner of a half-day training class at a local computer education center.

“I decided to take a class on Excel pivot tables,” says fish. “I didn’t know what they were, so it wouldn’t be a wasted morning away from the office.

“After being enlightened by this training, I decided to teach a lunch-and-learn class on them for our users, complete with live demonstrations.”

Among the attendees for fish’s class is the VP in charge of Mexican production, who takes a seat in the front row off.

Fish knows that VP keeps her production schedule in a spreadsheet consisting of two sheets. One contains line items for each item and due date. The other shows scheduled production week by week — which, fish now knows, is just what a pivot table would display.

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