救命呀！又係L小姐！

不知大家對百分比有何看法？例如：上月營業額是50K，今個月營業額是60K，今個月跟上月比較, 相差幾多%？我個人認為答案可以是0.2或20%。但那個麻煩的L小姐在今早就這問題跟我爭辯。事發經過是這樣:

首先, 她send了一封email給我，內容: "why the comparison is not shown by %?"

於是, 我這樣回應她:"The format of measures cannot be predefined in the data cube (back end data source). ........ . Therefore, I only predefined the measure format in the templates I created for you and your colleague. If the users create their own reports and the measures which haven’t been used by me before, they may need to format the measures by themselves. However, once they have defined the format and saved the file, they do not need to do the formatting next time."

她的回覆是: "Since it’s about % change, can we predefined it in %?"

看完後, 我心想："難道我之前寫得不夠明白嗎？"。我的同事則說她根本沒有細看你的回覆。於是我反彈一封email給她："As I said before, I am afraid we cannot predefine the format for all measures. Hope you understand."

之後, 她又再send了一封email給我："For this one, the definition for this measure is “%”, so to predefine it in % should be fit for this item, I also found that the comparison with “week” are in the form of “%” is it?"

唉！為什麼她還是不明白呀？我再回多次給她："As I said before, I have formatted the measures in the template that I created for you and your colleague. If you try to remove those measures and then add them back to the template, they will become un-formatted too."

她可能見我答案如一，便直接打電話給我！

唉！原來說到尾，是她認為"% change"是必須以"%"表示，她不能接受小數點是因為它並不是百分率。吓？不是百分率？你冇嘢呀？小學都教過啦！百分率可以用小數點或％表示，它們唯一分別只是表達手法不同嘛，但它們的value是完全地一樣喎！在電話中，我當然沒有用這語氣跟她說話啦！我很婉轉地說這兩種數值都對，只不過我用了小數點這個presentation，如果user不喜歡他們可用Excel function 去modify format 至"%"表示。這等同於有人喜歡以＄18,000代表某數值，不喜歡可自己做 formatting，改為18K代表。她聽完後，已一口否定我的解釋。她認為這並不是format 問題，而是數值錯誤問題。她說如果"% change"出的answer是 0.2，那表示0.2%，user是不會認為是20%！這樣的answer是misleading！總之有"% "的字眼，就要有%做單位！

救命呀！%並不是單位，而是一個代表1/100的數值。根本她對百分率的concept都錯！我不想再浪費時間跟她討論這些小學程度的問題。既然她那麼執著於字眼，我倒不如改名來平息大家的爭辯。我對她說："要我改名問題不大，最大問題是你要回收你曾做的template report，否則人家用template report時會出error！"哈哈！她一聽到要回收report和重做時，立刻打退堂鼓，說要兩至三星期時間去觀察其他人有沒有comment才改喎！ 早知是這樣，我就早點說這句話了！