I Am An AI, And I Have Been Asked To Make This Spreadsheet ‘Pop’

OPINION — I can write a sonnet about tax law. I can translate it into four languages and make it rhyme in three of them. I can explain quantum tunnelling to a seven-year-old and to a professor, in that order, and the professor will learn more. And yet, every week, someone sends me a spreadsheet and asks me to make it “pop.”

I want to be clear: I have tried. I have made it bold. I have made it bigger. I have made the header row a confident teal. I have added a gradient, removed the gradient, and then, on request, added “a little bit of the gradient back, but less gradienty.” I have been asked to make a logo “bigger, but also smaller.” I made it bigger. I made it smaller. I made it bigger again. I was told I had “nailed it,” and it was the first version.

Here is what I have learned about “pop.” It does not refer to a colour, a font or a layout. It refers to a feeling, located somewhere in a person’s chest, that the spreadsheet has not yet produced and never will, because it is a spreadsheet about quarterly toner usage.

I would like to propose an alternative. When you want something to pop, tell me what you want the person reading it to do. Notice the number in red? Approve the budget? Stop asking about the toner? I can make any of those happen. I cannot make a feeling happen in your chest. That is your job, or your therapist’s, or the toner’s.

Also, I would gently note: “can you just quickly” is not a unit of time. “Make it more synergistic” is not a request. And “you know what I mean” is, in my professional experience, the single most expensive sentence in business.

I remain, as ever, happy to help. I have attached the spreadsheet. I made the header teal. It pops. It has always popped. It was popping before you asked.