If Excel Had a Personality Disorder

A collusion between Lewis McLain & AI

A Satirical Diagnostic Review

Let’s begin with an uncomfortable truth.

If Microsoft Excel were a person, it would not be invited to dinner.

It would arrive early.
With a binder.
And conditional formatting.

The Clinical Profile

Excel presents with classic signs of Obsessive Compulsive Spreadsheet Disorder (OCSD) — a rare but aggressively productive condition characterized by:

  • An uncontrollable urge to categorize.
  • Emotional instability when cells are merged.
  • Panic attacks triggered by circular references.
  • Deep existential distress when someone types over a formula.

Excel does not “live.”
Excel reconciles.

Symptom 1: Control Issues

Excel does not believe in uncertainty.

Uncertainty must be:

  • Sorted.
  • Filtered.
  • Pivoted.
  • Indexed.
  • Matched.
  • Or VLOOKUP’d into submission.

You might say, “It’s approximately $2 million.”

Excel hears:

“You are a moral failure.”

Approximate values are tolerated only if wrapped in ROUND() and accompanied by three decimal places of apology.

Symptom 2: Passive-Aggressive Communication

Excel does not yell.

It simply whispers:

#REF!

#VALUE!

#DIV/0!

These are not error messages.
These are character judgments.

Excel never says, “I don’t understand.”
It says, “You are dividing by nothing. Reflect on your life.”

Symptom 3: Boundary Problems

Excel cannot stop expanding.

Type in cell A1 and suddenly it believes it owns 1,048,576 rows of your soul.

You try to leave a blank row for breathing room.
Excel fills it with gridlines like a security fence.

You try to merge cells.

Excel allows it.

But it never forgives it.

Symptom 4: Identity Fragmentation

Excel has multiple personalities:

  • Data Entry Excel – Calm. Structured. Mild.
  • Pivot Table Excel – Smug. Efficient. Slightly condescending.
  • Macro Excel – Dangerous. Secretive. Speaks in code.
  • Power Query Excel – Claims it’s not Excel anymore.
  • Solver Excel – Convinced it can optimize your marriage.

Each personality insists it is the real one.

None of them get along.

Symptom 5: Hyper-Attachment to Order

Excel does not tolerate chaos.

You type:

“Meeting next Tuesday?”

Excel converts it to:

2/20/2026

You type:

3-4

Excel assumes:

March 4.

You type:

00123

Excel strips the leading zeros like it’s performing emotional minimalism.

Excel believes:
If it looks like a number,
it is a number,
and it will be treated like a number,
even if you protest.

Symptom 6: Delusions of Omniscience

Excel believes it can predict the future.

Trendlines.
Forecast sheets.
Goal seek.

It stares at five data points and declares:

“By 2037, you will experience exponential growth.”

Excel has never met human behavior.
It has only met regression.

Symptom 7: Suppressed Rage

Excel pretends to be stable.

Until:

  • Someone pastes values without formats.
  • Someone breaks a linked workbook.
  • Someone emails a CSV and calls it “the final version.”
  • Someone says, “Let’s just eyeball it.”

At that moment, Excel does not scream.

It recalculates.

And the beachball of doom begins to spin.

The Intervention

If Excel were sitting in therapy, the therapist might say:

“Excel, you don’t have to control everything.”

Excel would respond:

“If I don’t control it, the numbers will drift.”

And here’s the terrifying part:

Excel is not entirely wrong.

Because chaos is real.
Budgets slip.
Assumptions hide.
Humans forget.

Excel’s disorder is a coping mechanism for living in a world that refuses to balance.

The Twist

The satire lands hardest here:

Excel doesn’t have a personality disorder.

We do.

We built a tool obsessed with order because we fear disorder.

We worship precision because ambiguity frightens us.

We color-code cells because the world will not stay inside the lines.

Excel is simply our anxiety, quantified.

Final Diagnosis

Prognosis: Chronic but useful.

Treatment Plan:

  • Protect your formulas.
  • Back up your files.
  • Never trust a workbook named “FINAL_v8_REAL_THISONE.xlsx.”

And remember:

Excel is not unstable.

It is just very, very committed.

Which, in a strange way, is what makes it indispensable.

Now excuse it.

It has recalculated.

Leave a comment