Spending total of 5 hrs. on a math formula

[shootingstar]

As some of you might remember, my dearie has been retired for awhile.

He was trying to figure out a complex formula to auto-calculate some figures for an Excel workbook.  It's part of financial forecast modelling that he does for his son's butcher and sandwich shop in Toronto. I have this feeling he genuinely does like this intellectual type of work.  It's a break from the daily online tracking of invoices, payments....and pretty soon corporate filing to the tax authority.

This all has been part of his retirement gig for past 4 yrs.  In between cycling consulting (he has done abit), advocacy work ….and tons of on-pavement cycling/trips.

For sure, spending hrs. on a math formula is not me. It would be time for blogging and art.

[Dottleshead ★]

Oh, solving equations can be delightful.  It's all a puzzle and if you are a puzzler solver than they can get contagious.  Sometimes you go to bed thinking about it and sometimes you wake up thinking about it. I would say it's akin to solving crossword puzzles. 

[shootingstar]

2 hours ago, Dottles said:

Oh, solving equations can be delightful.  It's all a puzzle and if you are a puzzler solver than they can get contagious.  Sometimes you go to bed thinking about it and sometimes you wake up thinking about it. I would say it's akin to solving crossword puzzles. 

Ok.  It's a crossword puzzle that seems like extreme work to me.  ?   The good thing is that dearie doesn't share these numeric puzzles in bed. ?

My crossword puzzle tends to be about concepts gelling into words and visualizing images and colours.  I literally get excited when I go into art supply or textile stores..the thoughts of creating something.

[Kzoo]

It’s a sub shop.  No sub shop needs a 5 hour Excel equation run their business.

[shootingstar]

9 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

It’s a sub shop.  No sub shop needs a 5 hour Excel equation run their business.

Ok...maybe this is where AI (artificial intelligence) can help.  What else would you suggest? Could AI also negotiate a better lease without father, the ex-contracts negotiator (which is what dearie's last job was for a national oil firm).

I bet  many restaurants, small shops don't even get any financial modelling done for them at all.  They can't afford it.

He's doing some predictive models to scope out for his son to deal with future...expanding as well as keeping certain products and services.  

[Dottleshead ★]

48 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

Ok.  It's a crossword puzzle that seems like extreme work to me.  ?   The good thing is that dearie doesn't share these numeric puzzles in bed. ?

My crossword puzzle tends to be about concepts gelling into words and visualizing images and colours.  I literally get excited when I go into art supply or textile stores..the thoughts of creating something.

He is creating something. And he gets to use it over and over.

[shootingstar]

9 minutes ago, Dottles said:

He is creating something. And he gets to use it over and over.

Yup, that's part of his objective. Until scenarios change based on son's ideas.

[Kzoo]

1 hour ago, shootingstar said:

Ok...maybe this is where AI (artificial intelligence) can help.  What else would you suggest? Could AI also negotiate a better lease without father, the ex-contracts negotiator (which is what dearie's last job was for a national oil firm).

I bet  many restaurants, small shops don't even get any financial modelling done for them at all.  They can't afford it.

He's doing some predictive models to scope out for his son to deal with future...expanding as well as keeping certain products and services.  

It’s a sandwich shop!!  What math formula that takes 5 FIVE 5 hours to figure out is going to help negotiate a better lease?

#overthinking

[Further]

5 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

It’s a sandwich shop!!  What math formula that takes 5 FIVE 5 hours to figure out is going to help negotiate a better lease?

#overthinking

I think the formula may be good for more than one use. Probably can apply it to many different businesses  

[shootingstar]

Kzoo, it's primarily a butcher shop where he orders large cuts from local farmers.  Sandwiches, private supper clubs, partnerships with microbreweries for cross-marketing events, catering, farmers' markets stall are all part of whole business products and services model. Don't oversimplify...because that's the danger. That's probably where some of the other businesses have lost.

The formula is not part of lease negotiations  (though there would probaby be a maximum sq.ft. leasing cost that is built into formula.)  The formula is related to past sales trends and various future scenarios if certain factors occur. Looking at commercial real estate and optimum location in relation to local neighbourhood disposable/spending income, transportation methods how son's customers get to store is a different business planning matter. 

Bsides this forumulae thing though useful, there are other facets of the business to consider to make a business survive well into the future.

The business is located within a 10 min. walk of subway station and in an older neighbourhood that's gentrifying and on a major street.

Kzoo, his son knows he's getting $50,000 free business consulting.....from his father. That will be tough to find...when papa is no longer on this earth.

[Road Runner]

Wow.      

[MickinMD ★]

I used to hate graduate school chemistry homework problems where the answers were in the back of the book, but it took several pages of calculus-based math to solve them.

After an hour or more on a single problem, I'd finally determine the answer was, say, 10 and look in the back of the book and the correct answer was 24.  And I'd look at all those pages of math trying to figure out where I might have made a mistake and was often up until the wee hours of the morning figuring it out.

My Taiwanese roommate, Shiau Kwan In ("Ski" to us dormies), said to me, "What's that 'Oh Fxxx!' mean that you say when you're having trouble with homework?"

I told him and he said, "In Taiwan, teenagers may talk like that but not grown men!"

So one day a bunch of us, including Ski, pennied a couple Chinese grad students in their dorm room as a joke.  "Pennying" is getting several guys to push on the upper part of the door, above the latch, and squeeze a few pennies between the door and the door jamb.  Then you do the same below the latch.  It puts so much pressure on the latch that you can't turn the doorknob and open it.

The Chinese guys trapped inside began yelling, "Gann nee ma!" at us in Taiwanese and we asked Ski what they we saying.  He replied, "They say that whoever did this has sex with his mother."

So, after learning what Mother F'er is in Taiwanese, that was the end of Ski pretending Chinese men didn't curse and I learned how to say Fxxx and many other words in both Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese dialects!