The one thing wrong with Tableau

My first instinct was to say 100 things wrong with Tableau but quickly realizing the futility of that task, I dropped a zero in there. Still it seemed too much for the modern reader — if you cannot convince them with one, then you cannot convince them with 10 or a 100.

Imagine, you are given a car which is rather expensive to obtain and maintain. Sure, the best things in life are free but they also come without a support plan or guarantee or can fail at the most critical time. Yeah, it doesn't sound so bad to pay up.

Having paid from your nose, suddenly you find out this car has its own dedicated ways of driving and usage and exactly one workshop in the whole world to go to in case you need more help or something breaks down. The driving technique is so limited to this car that it might take you months to understand it, but you cannot ever utilize that experience with any other car.

So, you already have that uneasy feeling that you are investing into a black hole — those things which take everything in and nothing ever escapes.

The marketing of tableau aside, if you have ever worked on it, it starts with simple drags and drops and makes an online chart in your browser that acts more lively than an average excel chart. This is where most users drop their guard and as they say, only fools rush in. As tasks get complicated, as more users need to collaborate, as managers need to understand what you are up to, it goes downhill pretty fast — and it doesn't work great on mobile platforms— true and sad story.

There is no shortcut to performance and excellence — learn how to fish and you will have a lasting career. If you found Tableau easy to work with, calculate how many other joes around you did the same and quickly put it in flashing red on their resumes. You went through school, college, university and numerous years of your career to tell mama that I am an expert in Tableau — Wow!

There is a huge line of data analytics packages out there which are industry independent, have a huge and free support online and most of all, are a portable skill — Once you learn python, SQL, React, JS libraries and the like, you learn something fundamental like algebra or the laws of motion — it is liberating and it is yours — free — best things in life!

Time is money, time is limited and it is better to get out of a bad relationship.