# Do you excel at anything?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 11, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377 "2019-06-11T15:17:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377/81 "2019-06-15T14:33:52Z")

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The Excel question in GQ reminds me I used to excel at Excel. Back in the 90s I had a job which involved a lot of spreadsheet work, and I knew every short cut, keyboard command and whatnot. There were complex calculators which had required two to three days labor and I wrote macros to automate it all. Got it down to about 30 minutes.

Fun stuff.

Now I rarely use it and it’s all forgotten.

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**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377/82 "2019-06-15T17:05:08Z")

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Doing things one handed, or doing things with my arm. Since my left hand is not very good, I’ve learned arms and elbows can do a lot more than people use them for. I’m very fast at work because I hold the bag open with my bad left hand, scanning and bagging the items in one motion with my right hand. When people tell me “You’re really fast,” I say “I bet you don’t know my secret” and explain my left hand injury.

I’ve gotten a lot of dropped jaws on that!

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**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377/83 "2019-06-15T18:11:11Z")

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I’m told by many I’m able to do amazing spot-on imitations of others, often after only having heard once: The speech patterns, cadences, inflections, vocal tones ( high to deep, whiny to gravelly ). Some have said I’m so good they wonder if I imitate _them_ to others.

I tell them it’s in their interests to be on good terms with me. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-excel-at-anything/835377/84 "2019-06-15T21:34:10Z")

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I guess I’ll be the first to volunteer a big dumb meathead thing: powerlifting.

If you want something extremely heavy moved for one rep, I’m your man.

I’m good enough for my weight class to be regionally competitive - to put that into perspective, in my medium sized gym, the only person on the leaderboard who competes with me for the #1 spot in absolute amount of weight moved is 4-5 weight classes above me, i.e. 80-100lbs heavier in bodyweight.

There’s just something about it - when I’m going for a max either in the gym or in competition, there’s just this ineffable feeling of “I was _born_ to do this” as I’m psyching myself up for the lift.

Picking up something extremely heavy and putting it down again seems like a pretty pointless thing to be proud of, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. 😃

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