why didn't they say so in the first place??

[kareina]

I really wish that the Mine geologists had thought to mention (back when I was collecting the samples) that there is a specific spreadsheet template that needs to be used when turning in the list of samples collected to the geoData department. My life would be much easier now had I known that they want each sample to take up multiple lines in a spreadsheet, with a new line for each type of information, starting with a code for what sort of information it is (rock type, structure, mineral, comment...) followed by a single piece of information such that there might be many lines for a single sample. But no--they they provided me a paper booklet to fill in, which had little boxes to be filled in for each sample, so I set up my spreadsheet with a single line for each sample, and one cell for each little box, and filled it in.

Now I have the joy of re-arranging the data to suit what they have wanted all along, but no one told me. It would have been so much easier to have done it in their format in the first place and just typed it how they want it as I collected the data.

Sigh. Back to work. 35% done with this task, can't stop yet...