The Science of Wasting Time

"You got a new mail (99+)"; second worst thing she reads each day.
A pile of emails; reminders, spam, requests going through all synonyms of "URGENT" and sometimes even mails not meant for her.
"URGENT: Please confirm whether Q2 data should include last year’s Q2"
Wow. So there ARE stupid questions. Hanako needed a moment.
One quirk of having a very common surname is you sometimes get to read someone else's drama. Or scolding.

I better forward this one.

Each work day started with the same old data preparation. Before anything could've been extrapolated from the data, it needed to be cleaned. Hanako could not understand how given a VERY CLEAR INSTRUCTIONS, people would still write "jpan" instead of "Japan". She stopped reminding people about it after the 4th mail that didn't do anything.

It's just part of the work, just like a teacher grades tests with lots of mistakes... or so she tells herself.

She's also just noticed the entire column "country" is redundant. Every data set she got for analysis is from Japanese companies, dealing only domestically.

Drop. Drop. Drop. Just add '_JPN' in file name if it's so important to you!

She opened her eyes wide. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Did someone actually write HALF a yen? No, the column was "Profit in Yen (10k)". 
Unit translation, brilliant.

World would be a much more peaceful place if everyone agreed on units. Granted, depending on context 'meters per second' might make much more sense then 'miles an hour', but Japan has just yens, no cent equivalent, why ruin it?

It was as simple as writing a short script to rename the column and multiply the values by 10000, but do it 5 times and it adds up.

Some Time Later...

There was an enjoyable part of her job. It starts the moment she can start visualizing her results. Sharing math with others was something she used to look forward. The seemingly endless ways of stating the same problem, dozens of visualizations. She believed everyone could understand anything, if it was presented the right way. Annoyingly, could doesn't necessary translate to want.

First the average customer. Starting with a huge red warning: 'Individual customers will vary significantly.' Now average spendings; monthly, quarterly, yearly...

She is quite good at gauging what the higher-ups are interested in. Introduce the averages to warm them up, then show a tree map, sankey diagrams, animate the most common purchases coming to the front, heatmap of purchases over time of day for days of the week. Some correlations to top it for and she forwards it to rest of her team. They suggest some aesthetical changes.
"Using shades of purple works great in the heatmap, but please change the tree map and sankey one so they use the primary colors only."
Color theory never was her biggest strength. She leaves the visual aspects to Suzuki. He actually wanted to be an artist, but his parents wouldn't pay his tuition if he chose that field of study, so he ended up graduating data science. Or so she overheard the others talking. She thought for a brief moment that maybe they could bond over that, but then she started overthinking his reaction. She is well aware "worst they can say is no" is a lie. Coming off as creepy at work is the last thing she needs. "Hi, I also didn't wanna do this job! Let's be friends." Shivers went down her spine just thinking about it.
For how much she and her team have been working together, she doubts they've spoken for more than an hour in total. Communicating through mails was much more efficient, despite them sitting not many meters away. The smell of coffee deterred her from changing that. She wondered what kept the others from talking to her.
Is it my suit? But everyone's wearing one... Is it my face? I'm sorry I was born this way... Could it be my cane? I can't do anything about any of this! Well, I could... just not here!

Refreshing her mail showed the worst thing she reads each day, one she's dreading. The worst part of this job, sometimes happening multiple times a day. A new mail appeared: "Reminder: Meeting Starts in 30 Minutes".