There are some things in life you don’t give a thought to… until it’s missing.

Like electricity. Running water.  Clear skies.

Recently I bought a new laptop from Low Yat.  (Fighter cracked the screen of my previous one -_-)

I don’t have many requirements of a laptop – I don’t need a high powered computer, just one with all the basic features so I can blog, surf and maybe watch streamed movies.

Bought it and the shop guys set it up for me.  Brought it home and realized….

No Microsoft Office. -_____________-

I told them I wanted Office on my laptop and I paid for it but guess what they didn’t give it to me -_-.  I didn’t have time to go back immediately to fix this so I lived without Office for a while.

Which was a bigger inconvenience than I expected!

I do most of my blog drafts – especially sponsored drafts – on Word so it was super annoying la!  My only other option was Notepad which messes up all formatting as everyone knows.  And you can’t include photos in Notepad.

I resorted to using cloud based apps which were ok, pretty convenient, but again a lot of formatting options were not available which I got very irritated over.

So that got me thinking – Microsoft Office has become so ubiquitous that we sometimes take it for granted it will always be there that when it’s not it hurtsssss. Lol.  And I started thinking of how long Office has been there for me since I was a kid until today, and how Office has changed with the times.

The 90s

In the 90s I was a primary school kid.  We had one family computer, which sat in the family room upstairs.  It was a huge beige box which looked like it weighed more than me.  Ooib and I used it mostly to play Tetris or other DOS games (OMG confirm those in their early 20s won’t know what I’m talking about)

My first encounter with Microsoft Office – and its star player Word – came about because sometimes Mummy Ooi would bring her work home with her.

She’d open up the Word program which looked something like this back then.

Then I’d watch in awe as she deftly tapped away on the keyboard, transcribing whatever it was she’d written in her notebook in shorthand onto the screen.  And unlike this generation, Mummy Ooi had gone to school to LEARN how to type.  I used to think the way she typed was so soothing, like she was playing the piano.

The early 00s

I was in high school.  I remember Form 4 and 5 was the era of group projects.  Nobody owned personal laptops yet so to do our work, we’d go over to each other’s houses and socialize do the work together on one computer.

We mostly wrote papers and mini booklets so Word was still our to-go program.

It looked something like this!

And it came with a paper clip character called Clippy who was supposed to help answer any questions you typed for him.  Basically a Help resource la hahaha.  But he was animated and had a very smug look on his face one hahaha.

I remember getting angry at his smug face whenever I didn’t get the answer I was looking for. :X

2004-2008

I entered Mount Holyoke!  Fat Her Ooi bought me my first ever laptop.

HAHA found a old photo to illustrate!  This is me and Angela being annoying wtf.  And in front of me was my first ever laptop.

I was a liberal arts student so the program I continued to use a lot was Word of course.  I used the Word on it to type tonsssssssssssssssssss of papers and assignments you wouldn’t know.  Not just papers for class, but also short story writing assignments.  That Word was damn prolific ok.

This is what it looked like then.

I also used it to save MSN chat conversations I am so loser.

And of course I typed my senior thesis (that won me honors *ahem*) on it. That paper… I think I constipated over it for a whole year ok.

2008-2012

I graduated and started working!

This was what Word looked like then.  I wrote my resume and cover letters out on this Word! Hahaha.

And for the first time, I ventured into using Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint.  In fact, I would use these two a lot more than Word.

I worked in a digital media agency so most of my work was doing up campaign proposals on Powerpoint, or media plans and booking schedules on Excel.  I remember confessing to my boss that I’d never used these programs before but I think even he was shocked at how noob I was hahaha.  I remember the first few months I sweated over trying to figure out how to work the various functions and even how to write formulas for Excel.

I never really got that good at doing PowerPoint presentations; somehow I just suck at laying out a deck la wtf.  But I know my way around both PPT and XLS well enough now!

2012 – Now

Since leaving my job to raise a family and focus on full time blogging, I obviously have less use for Excel and PowerPoint. I used Excel for wedding planning and to tally costs, and PPT for making our wedding slideshow lolol.  And now I usually use Excel to make lists, keep track and calculate angpau amounts LOLOL.

Of course I still regularly use Word for my blogging work.  And sometimes I open a blank Word document for fun so Fighter can bang away at my laptop and pretend he’s ‘working’ like daddy.

Looking back, it’s actually very cool how Office has changed and adapted throughout the years.  And how my usage of it has changed along with what is happening in my life.

I wonder where the future will take us.

Even now. I’m using Office 2016 which has recently launched in September and it has already evolved so much with the needs of today.  Like you don’t even need a CD to install it anymore!  When you purchase Office, you receive a product key.  Just go to the Office setup website and key in the product key and install the software from there.

Not to mention it’s cloud based of course.

Not only can I save it on the cloud – OneDrive – I can share documents and group-edit in real time. Meaning  seeing Word changes reflected in real time to all users who’ve opened the document.

Good to use when I share my blog drafts with my talent manager and ad ops people – I can easily see their feedback and vice versa. 😀

Another feature I really like is Tell Me.  It’s like a Help feature made as easy as possible (definitely better than Clippy lol).  

You just type in what you want to do and you get there immediately without needing to hunt around or follow instructions.  Why isn’t this feature available earlier!? 😀

Anyway like I mentioned, Office 2016 is out!  

And they’re running a promo for Xmas!

Purchase a Office 365 Personal, Office Home & Student 2016, or Office Home & Business 2016 in the Rugi Tak Beli promotion from now until 31 December at a store near you, and redeem gift vouchers worth up to RM60 (while stocks last).

Customers who buy Office 2016 also stand a chance to win a Surface Pro 3 by sharing a video, photo or story on Facebook of how Office helps you to do and achieve more, and hashtagging #rugitakbeli.

Check out www.microsoft.com/malaysia/belioffice2016 for more information.

This post was written in collaboration with Microsoft Office