Chapter 15
When a warning isn’t enough
Gary doesn’t discover a problem.
He reasons his way to one.
He’s been watching how the warnings behave.
Who fixes them.
Who ignores them.
Which ones matter.
And gradually, something becomes obvious.
Some things should not pass
Gary looks at a row with missing information.
Not annoyed.
Not surprised.
Just clear.
Most of the time —
almost all of the time —
this should not be allowed.
A missing price isn’t a suggestion.
A missing year isn’t optional.
In those cases, a warning is too polite.
The system shouldn’t comment.
It should refuse.
Saving should simply not be possible.
That feels obvious — until it isn’t
Then Gary slows down.
Because he knows the exceptions.
That rare pressing
where the year is genuinely unknown.
That odd release
where the information never existed.
In those cases, blocking the save would be wrong.
The record should be there —
even if it’s incomplete.
Gary realizes something important:
The rule is correct.
But its application depends on who is acting.
99% strict, 1% deliberate
Gary has no problem with strict rules.
He wants them.
But only if:
- the system blocks mistakes by default
- exceptions are deliberate
- and only the right people can make them
Gary trusts himself to make that call.
He does not want Hank making it casually.
And he doesn’t want exceptions happening silently.
If a rule is bypassed,
that should be obvious.
Stopping turns out to be hard
Gary looks back at Excel.
It’s good at pointing things out.
It’s good at coloring cells.
But stopping an action?
That’s different.
Now the system has to decide:
- who is allowed to proceed
- who is not
- and under what circumstances
That logic doesn’t live in a cell.
It lives somewhere else —
somewhere Excel was never meant to hold.
Warnings are easy. Refusals are not.
Gary sees the difference now.
Warnings:
- show problems
- avoid confrontation
- keep things moving
Refusals:
- enforce intent
- require authority
- need memory and context
Excel handles the first comfortably.
The second feels… forced.
This isn’t about being strict
Gary isn’t trying to lock things down.
He’s trying to be precise.
Most rules should hold.
Some should bend — intentionally.
That requires:
- enforcement
- controlled exception
- and responsibility
The spreadsheet can signal.
It cannot decide.
Continue reading
In the next chapter, Gary finally puts words to it.
The problem isn’t the rules.
It’s that the system doesn’t know
who is acting —
or when an exception is justified.
That’s when Sam explains
why a spreadsheet has reached its limit.