The pd.merge() function is one reason why I like Python better than Excel

This morning when I entered my paid employment I was quite surprised to find that the afternoon before the IT guy came and replaced my clunky old computer with a tiny new one. Not only that, I had been given more modern Microsoft software to supersede the old MS7 version I had been using.

So excited was I that I had been given more up to date software to use to help me carry out my daily work, I decided to try to merge two worksheets together to form one large one. I had been wanting to do this for quite some time, but could not, because of the out of date software I had been using.

Because I was not quite sure how to do this, I consulted the search engine to obtain instructions on what should have been a relatively simple task. Not so, my version of Excel does not have a merge command, so that was not an option available to me. I then decided to try Excel’s VLOOKUP() function. For some reason I do not know, VLOOKUP() did not work on my version of Excel.

After several hours of searching the internet to find a way I could merge the two sheets, consolidate them, or use VLOOKUP, I had to abandon the project because my other work was not getting done.

After a wasted work day. I thought about how much easier the task I was attempting to accomplish…