28-year-old employee trying to keep up with the corporate ladder pretends like he knows Excel, gets promoted for just figuring it out along the way: ‘I went to YouTube University.’

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Aug 7, 2025 8:00 PM EDT

Turns out you really can fake it 'til you make it! A 28-year-old employee was working a pretty entry level job. However, desperate to work his way up the corporate ladder, he simply just kept agreeing to take over projects that he actually had no idea how to handle. He didn't want to turn down any opportunity to grow in the company, even if that meant lying about his abilities. Luckily, we live in 2025, where you can turn to the internet to learn almost anything! So, he did what any smart 21st century person would do, and spent hours on YouTube, Reddit, and anywhere online that taught him what he needed to know. And guess what? It worked! He self-taught himself up the ladder and was even promoted to an official Data Analysts in the company. 

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  • guy typing on laptop computer, excel spreadsheet, work employee, IT, tech
    via Unsplash+ (and Campaign Creators)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "The Day I Lied About Knowing Excel and Accidentally Became a 'Data Guy'"

    So, this happened a little over a year ago, and I'm still pretending I know what I'm doing.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • I (28M) work in a logistics company. Think spreadsheets, supply chains, and people saying things like "leverage synergy" without irony.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • I was hired into a pretty generic coordinator role ,basically, I emailed a lot and tried not to di in back-to-back Zoom meetings.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • One day, during a team meeting, someone casually says, "We need someone who knows Excel really well. Like, formulas and pivot tables and all that stuff."
    via Glad-Law7633
  • Now, I do not know Excel really well. I know how to bold text. I once accidentally made a chart and couldn't figure out how to delete it.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • But for some reason maybe it was the coffee, maybe it was the sheer boredom I said, "Yeah, I can help with that."
    via Glad-Law7633
  • Cue immediate regret. My manager lights up like I just offered to fix the company's entire data strategy.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • "Awesome!" she says. "You can be our data point person moving forward."
    via Glad-Law7633
  • That week, they added me to like four different projects involving spreadsheets that looked like they were built by NASA engineers.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • Rows and columns and formulas that stretched for miles. I opened one file and it literally crashed my laptop.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • So what did I do? The only thing I could do.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • excel spreadsheet, data analysts, numbers, crunching numbers, work, employee
    via Unsplash+ (and Mika Baumeister)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I went to YouTube University.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • For the next two weeks, every night was a crash course in Excel.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • SUMIF, VLOOKUP, INDEX MATCH stuff I thought was made up suddenly became my lifeline.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • I started speaking in cell references. I dreamed in conditional formatting.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • And somehow, it worked. I didn't crash the system.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • I even built a dashboard (read: followed a tutorial and slightly changed the colors). People started calling me "the Excel guy."
    via Glad-Law7633
  • Eventually, I actually got moved to the analytics team. Like, that's my real title now.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • I went from "random coordinator" to "Data Analyst❞ because I lied. Just once. In a meeting.
    via Glad-Law7633
  • And now I spend my days pretending to be someone who knows what they're doing, which I guess is... kind of what adulthood is anyway?
    via Glad-Law7633
  • Moral of the story: Never admit weakness in a corporate setting. Or do. Honestly, I still don't know.
    via Glad-Law7633

  • It just goes to show, that you really don't need those fancy degrees to have the knowledge, you just need the thirst to learn! It's not easy, especially with the attention spans ingrained in our systems these days. But if you have the ability and the focus, you can learn many useful skills online that people usually pay big bucks to learn!

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management salary youtube university boss employee hourly manager job work coworkers excel spreadsheet upper management fake it til you make it co-workers employees entertaining career tips and tricks supervisor workplace work hack company brilliant business
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