Jake was running a beautiful piece of walnut through the planer when Carol from the office appeared at his elbow. He shut off the machine, pulling his safety glasses up.
“You know Excel, right?” she asked. “We need help with something real quick.”
Jake shrugged. “You could say I’ve figured out a few things here and there.”
“That’s more than any of us. Can you spare thirty minutes?”
He glanced at the walnut, then followed Carol to the office. Thirty minutes. He would return to his real work soon enough.
The problem was simple—they needed to calculate board feet pricing with waste factors. Jake set up a basic formula, added some formatting, and tried to head back to the shop.
“Wait,” Carol said. “Can you show me how to add different wood species?”
By lunch, he had added dropdown menus for species, grades, and moisture content. The owner stopped by, watched Jake work, and clapped him on the shoulder. “This is exactly what we needed! You’re a lifesaver.”
That was five years ago.
Now Jake spent, at best, two hours a week in the shop, usually just to see what was going on, check measurements, or count inventory. The rest of his time was in the office, building increasingly complex spreadsheets that had somehow become the backbone of their entire operation. Quotes, inventory, job tracking, shipping schedules, waste calculations, customer pricing tiers—it all ran through Excel files that only Jake understood.
He had become indispensable. Everyone knew it. “Don’t know what we’d do without Jake,” the owner said regularly. “He’s the one who makes us money. And he’s the only one who understands how everything works.”
Jake would smile and nod, but inside he felt trapped. He had never wanted to be the Excel guy. He wanted to work with wood, to create with his hands. Instead, he spent his days wrestling with formulas and fixing broken links between spreadsheets. He felt ungrateful, knowing he had become one of the highest paid employees.
The breaking point came on a Tuesday morning when the owner introduced their new hire.
“Everyone, meet Madison. She graduated just a few years ago. She’s our new secretary, and she’ll be helping organize everything in the office.”
Madison was eager, bright-eyed, and full of questions. By her second day, she was shadowing Jake.
“So this quote sheet pulls prices from five different workbooks?” she asked, peering at his monitor.
“Yeah, it’s complicated but it works,” Jake said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Why not have it all in one system? And why does it take forty-five minutes to generate a quote?”
Jake felt defeated. “Because every customer is different. We have custom pricing, special wood requirements, different waste factors—”
“Right, but couldn’t that all be automated? My last job was at a company that—”
Jake let out a long breath. “I know, I know. Trust me, I’ve tried to simplify it a thousand times. But every time I try, there’s another special case, another exception…all in the name of customer service and growth.”
Madison paused, hearing something in his voice she had not expected. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make your life harder. I just… I want to help.”
The Weight of Being Needed
That night, Jake lay awake thinking about Madison’s questions. The truth was, he knew the system was a mess. He had known it for years.
What began as simple board feet calculations had mutated into a monster. He had seventeen interconnected spreadsheets, some of which contained over thirty tabs. The quote sheet alone had 1,500 rows and formulas that looked like:
=VLOOKUP(B2,'[Pricing Master v12 FINAL updated.xlsx]Species’!$A$2:$G$500,MATCH(C2&D2,'[Pricing Master v12 FINAL updated.xlsx]Species’!$F$1:$M$1,0),FALSE)*IF(E2=”Kiln Dried”,1.15,1)*(1-F2/100).
Even Jake had to stare at his own formulas sometimes, struggling to remember what they did.
The worst part was the fear. Not fear of making mistakes—though that kept him up at night too—but fear of becoming irrelevant. If someone else could understand his system, would the company still need him? He was no longer the best woodworker; he had spent too many years in the office. He had no formal training in business or computers. He was just… the Excel guy.
Madison’s innocent questions threatened all of that. Within a week, she had mapped out his entire system on a whiteboard, identifying redundancies and bottlenecks he had tolerated for years.
“Jake,” she said one morning, “I’m not trying to replace you. But what happens when you want to take a vacation? Or if you get sick? The whole company runs on systems only you understand.”
He wanted to argue, but he remembered last year’s anniversary trip. He had spent half of it on his phone, walking his coworker through fixing a formula error. His wife had barely spoken to him the entire drive home.
“Also,” Madison continued gently, “you’re obviously talented with wood. I saw that cabinet you made in the break room. Wouldn’t you rather spend more time doing that instead of being locked into a windowless office fixing spreadsheets?”
Jake stared at his screen, at the seventeen Excel files he had open, at the error message blinking in cell G447. She was right. He was drowning in work he had never wanted, protecting a job that was slowly killing his passion for the craft he loved.
Finally Jake spoke. “What would you suggest?” he asked.
Stepping into the Team
Madison’s enthusiasm was infectious. “There are companies that specialize in building custom software for manufacturers like us. They could create a system that meets every need your spreadsheets do, but better, and here’s the key—you’d be involved in designing it. Your knowledge is invaluable. You understand our business and our workflow better than anyone.”
Jake felt a mix of relief and terror. “But then what? Once it’s built, they won’t need me anymore.”
The owner, who had been listening from the doorway, stepped in. “Jake, are you kidding? You think we kept you around just for Excel? You’re one of our best woodworkers. I’ve been wanting to put you in charge of custom projects for years, but you’re always stuck in here fixing spreadsheets.”
“Really?”
“Really. Let’s bring in professionals to build a proper system. You help them understand our needs, then you get back to what you do best—working with wood. Maybe even train some of the younger guys. We need someone with your eye for grain. I’d write a check tomorrow if I knew I could get that!”
Jake looked at his cluttered screen one more time. Five years of patches, workarounds, and band-aids. Five years of being needed for the wrong reasons. Five years of solving the same problems over and over because the real solution—admitting he was in over his head—felt like failure.
Maybe it was not a failure. Maybe it was freedom.
When Good Intentions Create Bad Systems
Jake’s story is not unique. In companies across the country, talented employees are pulled into becoming “the spreadsheet person.” They begin by solving one small problem and end up maintaining complex systems they never planned to build.
These accidental developers mean well. They work nights and weekends to keep the business running. They become indispensable—and that is exactly the problem. When one person holds all the knowledge, the business is one vacation, one sick day, one job change away from crisis.
Here is what typically happens:
- The spreadsheets grow organically without planning or documentation
- Solutions are layered on top of patches on top of workarounds
- Only one person understands how it all connects
- That person cannot take time off without their phone ringing
- The business cannot grow because the system cannot scale
- Everyone is frustrated but afraid to change
The lone ranger does not want to be difficult. They have just painted themselves into a corner. They are protecting their value to the company the only way they know how—by being irreplaceable.
A Different Approach
When businesses like this come to CodeCrafters, we often meet these lone ranger developers. They are sometimes defensive at first, seeing us as a threat, but we are not here to replace them—we are here to free them. We are here to bring a team-based approach–one where all the pressure does not rest on one person’s shoulders.
We bring multiple perspectives. We blend our perspective with perspectives from clients’ teams. We blend our individual perspectives internally as well. Our teams review each other’s work, catching issues one person might miss.
We employ best practices. We have built dozens of systems, have spent years developing software, and understand what works.
We document every function and every process. It makes the software far easier to support and maintain.
We make it scalable. We design our systems to grow with your business–handling millions of records without any noticeable slowdown.
We lower risk by sharing knowledge. Your whole team learns to use the system, not just one person. We have multiple team members who are familiar with the system and its processes.
We offer support. If something breaks, you call us instead of needlessly pausing your entire operations.
Most importantly, we work with your lone ranger, not against them. They know your business inside and out. Their knowledge is invaluable. We just help translate that knowledge into a system that one person does not need to maintain alone.
Imagine your Excel person leading the implementation project, then transitioning to the role they really want where they can use software as a tool, not maintain it as a burden. Weekends that are actually weekends. Vacations without phone calls about broken formulas. Your business humming along, carried by a team rather than resting on one person’s shoulders.
Free your business from spreadsheet captivity.
Is Your Business Held Hostage by Spreadsheets?
If you are dependent on one person’s Excel knowledge, you are one departure (or marriage getaway!) away from a crisis. If your “Excel person” cannot take a real vacation, your systems are too fragile. If they do not return calls, it is time to bring in help. If growth means adding more spreadsheets and more complexity, it is time for a change.
CodeCrafters specializes in freeing businesses from spreadsheet dependency. We will work with your team—including your Excel hero—to build systems that scale. No more lone rangers. No more irreplaceable people. Just solid, professional software that lets everyone do their best work.
Are you ready to liberate your accidental Excel developer? Schedule a free consultation with CodeCrafters to explore how custom software can transform your operations. Visit our website to schedule a consultation or call 620-209-4250 to start building systems that work for everyone.
Your best woodworker should not be stuck debugging spreadsheets.
Sincerely,
Ellis Miller, CEO