I recently had to replace my faithful Logitech wireless keyboard / mouse combo, due to the receiver having stopped working properly after… receiving quite a few blows during a rather bumpy trip that I had, not too long ago.
Although very happy with the overall performance of my equipment throughout the years, when I had to make a decision on a replacement keyboard / mouse combo, I opted for one manufactured by Microsoft (“MS”), just because I wanted to see how a similarly priced item (albeit slightly cheaper), would perform. In other words, I wanted to see what I had been missing out on, all that time.
And it turns out, I wasn’t missing out on much… Setting aside the differences in the size of the equipment, which may make me feel uneasy for now but I know I will get used to in time, what struck me was this: The new keyboard / mouse combo that I got, requires both AA and AAA batteries to operate (as opposed to my previously owned Logitech, which only required AA batteries).
Now, I am sure the designers could make a million arguments as to why they made the decision to design the thing the way they did, but to me, as a consumer, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. And the reason is because now I will have to manage a stock of both AA and AAA batteries from the one type that I had to manage until now. And that increases complexity for me unnecessarily.
I oftentimes receive financial models to review, that have over four lines of code in a single cell. And sadly, this is not a figure of speech, it has happened to me and on multiple occasions to be honest. This is probably the most notable difference between a professional financial modeler and someone who simply knows how to use Excel: The former will write for you code in a manner that is easy to read, understand and digest. The latter, will write for you code in hieroglyphics that you don’t understand, that you can only hope will work as intended and should you need any changes made, you will have to engage them again, because your lack of understanding of the workings of the model, will not leave you any room for changes. The latter is also cheaper. (The first time – just like my new keyboard / mouse combo.)